Todor’s counseling brought Agnieska back to my bed (she had, in the immediate aftermath of returning home from the hospital, started sleeping in our guest bedroom … and stayed there for many months). Though we started having sex again – as Agnieska became very determined to get pregnant as soon as possible – passion had gone south in the wake of our son’s death. I blamed myself for not being as engaged as I could have been with her in the terrible months after. I started traveling around California and nearby states like Nevada and Arizona for my work. There were moments when I told myself: now that we don’t have a child binding us together I could end things and escape a marriage that I knew was not what I wanted. Todor sensed this and kept steering me away from shirking the vow I’d made in front of God … and the fact that ‘if you abandon this very good woman, whose suffering is still immense, you will never forgive yourself’. I stayed put. But I am sure that Agnieska sensed my uncertainty at the time – and that must have increased her sense of loneliness (for which I still, many years on, blame myself). It took her over two years to conceive again – and though we were both elated by the birth of our daughter Klara, neither of us had attended properly to our marriage. The gulf that arrived after tragedy sideswiped us quietly widened with each passing year. Agnieska was a loving mother to Klara, but also hyper-vigilant about everything to do with her. As our daughter got older she felt increasingly crowded by her. Agnieska, in turn, became more and more critical of Klara (especially when, as a teenager, she started to express ideas that Agnieska found radical and decidedly anti-Church). My wife also began to silently resent the fact that Klara and I were so close.

‘You’re such a daddy’s girl,’ she would tell her whenever they clashed. ‘And Daddy lets you get away with everything.’

I wasn’t that lenient with my daughter. She was raised to be polite and to work hard at school. But it’s true that I did encourage her to think for herself and to be as independent as possible. Which, in turn, ran contrary with everything to do with her mother and her ever-increasing belief in the sanctity of faith.

That faith came in for a further testing when, three years after Klara’s birth, Agnieska fell pregnant again … only to miscarry ten weeks later. It was too early to tell whether she was carrying a boy or girl. This time she did not descend into the terrible grief that accompanied Karol’s death. This time her initial sorrow was quickly replaced by a steely resolve.