I got my answer. Just woke up – well, an hour ago but I still can’t sleep. It’s 5:30am now. I had a dream – that I told Delphine off and lost her. We were in a train station on the lower ground floor. I don’t know why I was telling her off. Typical. That bit dissolves in the dream like sugar. The bit I’m left with is Delphine being so angry at me, she hiked up the station’s escalators and disappeared. And I never saw her again. Once she got upstairs to the busy concourse, I lost her.

Did she get disoriented and lose her bearings? She couldn’t find the escalator back down? Did someone see her confusion and take advantage of her? Did they steal her away? In the dream I was certain they did. Urghh- don’t they have CCTV in dreams?

Whether Delphine was snatched in my dream or if I’d ever see her again – I didn’t know. I did know that I let her go. I watched her go up that dream escalator and didn’t stop her. Let her cool down, I thought in my dream self. In this way, I was complicit in her disappearance. Let the spoilt disabled kid get her just desserts I thought. And she did – she got them alright. Feel better, Mother?

Ok, this being a dream – a fictional run-through of mind-bending sorts – I can say I was a little bit relieved. Part of me was like – there’s my burden over. Terrible, I know. Human too. Last night, after Delph went to bed, I was facing the prospect of another academic year working with her with a heavy heart. With the Delph that doesn’t want to do the work. The one who’s on her iPad all the time. The one who talks quietly to herself. The Delphine who looks pissed off with the world. Her anger got her in the end and I was like, ‘Told you,’ in my dream. My shift is over.

But wait, didn’t I create that Delphine? Homeschool and boat school and probably not enough time with her fellow peers just hanging out. Did she lose the time to learn to be kind? Is that gone forever now? She used to be the kindest little kid. Funny, easy-going tough nut wrapped. Right now, I’m worried I’m going turn the corner and catch her strangling Chloe or some helpless animal. Or that she gets so mad at me I really will lose her forever. That’s what happened in my dream. Just a dream, right? Oh dear, now I’m confused.