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By Naomi Booth

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‘My childhood was a map marked with danger zones . . . Even the playground at the edge of our estate was to be accessed only in specific circumstances. It must be daylight; it must be before seven in the evening; we were not speak to strangers; me and my sister must always stick together. We were never, ever, to wander away from the playground into the woods, where people sniffed glue and worse. We were never, ever to walk up towards Scapegoat Hill or Marsden Moor. Me and my sister were cared for. We were bathed and fed and clothed. But, as with many children, we couldn’t have told you if we were loved. Our experience of care came in the form of a warning’

Grace’s work requires her to be careful. She spends her days reading and editing legal case files, making sure the latest judgments are published as quickly and accurately as possible.

But outside of her work, Grace is not a careful person. Her father’s history as a police officer working across an infamous case of child abuse shadows her life, as does the violent history entrenched across the landscape of her childhood, and her fears often surface as recklessness.

When Grace becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she tries to accommodate her boyfriend and the prospect of the baby in her life. But after the relief and strange joy of the birth, Grace starts to imagine all sorts of terrible injuries and deaths befalling her child. The steep stairs to her apartment, the kitchen scissors, a boiling kettle all suddenly hold visceral and overwhelming potential for disaster. The baby’s vulnerability terrifies her: fault-lines in her relationship begin to show, and her family history and repressed memories of violence break to the surface.

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