Middle

About a week after we moved into the Airbnb, you started complaining about shortness of breath. ‘I think I have asthma,’ you insisted in your small 6-year-old voice – though I’ve never seen you suffer from attacks during your rambunctious play. Mindful that breathing complaints are often related to emotional distress, I began looking for play therapy.

Of my three children, it’s your name I say the most. ‘MIDDLE,’ I shout to your older brother when he’s behaving childishly, before correcting myself. ‘Can you change Middle’s nappy,’ I ask my partner, before he corrects me – I have another baby now.

And of course, I say it a lot to you. ‘Middle, stay close to me in a crowded place. Middle, please mind your baby brother. MIDDLE! Stop jumping between the sofas! This isn’t our flat, you know!’

‘I miss our house, Mummy. When can we go back?’

And I can’t tell you whether or when we’ll be going back. One more of your many questions I can’t answer, Mr Questions. (You hate that nickname.)

Last night I read you a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You tried to land on a black hole and your story ended with one sentence: You are never heard from again. ‘Mummy,’ you said to me, ‘how would you feel if I grew up in space and decided to go to your home planet and landed on a black hole and died?’

‘I’d be devastated, Middle,’ I replied.

‘But you’d probably be happy not to hear my annoying shouting again.’

I looked at you and swallowed down my feelings. ‘No, Middle, I would never be happy. I would be so sad and so devastated that I would do anything to hear your shouting again.’

And I hugged you tightly and held you close, and I told you how much I love you, and I felt you inhale quickly in shallow little gasps.