Bambi and Thumper on a calf

The pond froze solid on Tuesday, so the fawn we've been calling Dimity has taken to sliding across it on her hind legs as if she's skating in a picture book. Dad says she'll break a leg. She won't. She still has the look she gave you the morning you left, all wide brown eyes and no sense of the weather, and the rabbit that followed her in from the hedge has decided she is his responsibility. He sits at the kitchen door tapping one foot until somebody gives him carrot ends.

Mum has taken to leaving the lamp on in the porch. She says it's for the milk lorry, but I know it's for you. Frost came down thick on the apple trees by the lane, and the pink butterflies you used to chase in August are long gone, but the ivy on the wall still has green in it. Mum says that's a good sign. Dad says it's just ivy.

Last Sunday I finally took the tin of your old pencils down from the shelf and drew the pair of them on the back of a feed sack. I did the heart with a crooked ribbon across the bottom and wrote your name on it, the way you used to on everything you owned. The rabbit's ears came out too long. I kept them anyway.

Come home for lambing, or before. The fawn knows the way to the gate now, and I suppose so do I.

Love, Ellie