The long, meandering queue stretches beyond them like the River Nile. She can feel Eva’s quick, small slippery palm escaping from her own prying, desperate grasp. Her own fingers clutch, but falter. It’s too late. The echoing moment of calm that has passed between them only seconds ago, shatters.

“Mummy!” Eva’s voice rings out like an alarm bell and Kara’s heart falters, squeezes with that familiar tightness.

Kara looks down at her. Eva’s cheeks redden to her trademark shade of crimson. No, no, no. Not now. Her tiny hands curl into fists.

“Why are we waiting here?” Her bundle of joy bellows.

Kara feels another part of her soul take flight. Yet, somehow she’s heavier still. A concrete paperweight. Pushing the towering trolly away from them, she kneels, her face burning, feeling a sea of eyes on her. The rhythmic beep of the scanner and impatient sighs of shoppers resonate around them.

“What is it, love?” She wonders aloud what it could possibly, possibly be this time. In a world as small as Eva’s there seems to be an awful lot of obstacles. Kara studies her swollen, bloated daughter, squashed into her precious fuchsia tutu, her chubby cheeks wobbling as her mouth turns down further and further.

“I’m hungry!” She wails, and tears, somehow, miraculously, spring from her sapphire eyes.

Again? “Okay, can you please wait until we get home?” Kara pleads, her trembling knees aching for her to rise again.

“I said - I’m hungry! I want chocolate - now!” Eva’s determined gaze glints with a dangerous fury.

Kara’s heart gives another painful squeeze, feels her daughter’s unhappiness shrouding her, suffocating her.

She rises, as does the pitch of Eva’s frantic cries.

Her pale, quaking fingers fumble through the own brand items and finally she locates the magic packet.

Within moments, her cries are silenced.

She grins and bears the accusatory eyes of the checkout assistant as he scans the oddly light, empty packet, and leaves it for her to pack away on the other side of the conveyer belt.

On the way home, Kara erases the painfully recent memories of cards being declined, of dividing payments between them, praying they would not let her down again.

When they reach home, Eva begs Kara to play dollhouses with her, and despite the growing number of missed calls on her phone, emails piling up in the inbox titled “Urgent,” she agrees.

After she puts the shopping away, she goes to the bathroom and studies herself briefly in the mirror. Her face is lined, drawn, haggard, like a thousand sorrowful nights have passed by and she’s endured every single one. Her cheekbones slice through her skin, collar bones rising high like a barrier.

“Mummy!” Eva demands, impatience dripping off her tongue.

“Coming!” She replies, taking one last look at the ghost of the woman she once knew.