She will not sleep anywhere she has not slept before without one of us in the room.

Not a tantrum — a flat, absolute refusal that arrives calmly and does not move.

She was four years old for three days on other people’s furniture and she has no idea why she is like this and neither, entirely, do I.

And she counts.

She counts the people in a room when we arrive somewhere, out loud, once, and then she is fine.

She has done it since she was five.