38 years

'Happy New Year ' Dad says as a toast and our glasses come together with a clink before for we all take a sip of champagne to celebrate the new year.

'Let's hope it's better than last year' I add quietly. Mum just gives me a sympathetic look, overhearing my muttered hope. She raises her glass as if to agree with me before being dragged into a conversation with the Doctor who has joined them for New Years. Well, actually he and Melody were aiming for Christmas Day but apparently he was driving so they arrived on New Year's Eve instead.

I let sigh and sink into the depths of Mum and Dad's worn sofa clutching my glass of champagne. I really really want this year to be better than the last one. I spent Christmas this year with Mum and Dad and the children. Jack's with his parents. We haven't split up nor had a really big fight, Tina, his mum, had a stroke at the beginning of February so our whole year has been spent worrying about her and trying to explain to the children why Grandma was a bit different. I had offered to go with him to his parent's for Christmas but he said the children deserved a Happy Christmas.

I look across at Melody who comes to sit next to me, she has this wistful look in her eyes as she watches her husband, The Doctor explain something to Mum and Dad, his arms waving widely in the air and speaking at a hundred words a minute. This past year has been tough on Melody as well, she knew it was bound to happen but she is now meeting younger versions of The Doctor, versions that don't know who she really is and versions that don't trust her.

I've never seen Melody so upset until she turned up on my doorstep just after I had put Bryony and Dominic to bed and was in the process of bathing Ella. The door bell had rung and with Ella in the bath I had rushed down the stairs, opened the door and Melody had practically flung herself at me. I had made her a cup of tea before putting Ella to bed with a promise that she could spend some time with her Aunty Mel in the morning. Melody had then spent the rest of the night telling me about her adventure with the Doctor and younger versions of our parents to Utah, where she had watched him 'die' all over again before having an adventure with his younger self. What made it worse was she could not tell any of them the truth.

'I so wanted to blurt out everything about the silence and how Mum was not really there but I couldn't.' I had tried to comfort her as best as I could and she ended up falling asleep on my sofa.

'Oh look at my beautiful girls' Mum says walking over to, slightly wobbly from the champagne we have all been consuming and plonking herself between both of us. Mum has aged gracefully; her face still could probably sell perfume and she still looks beautiful. She wraps her arms around both me and Melody and for that moment I feel safe, in my mother's arms with my sister nearby.

There is a flash as Dad takes a picture of us all grinning at each other and I know that this year will be better than the last.