Make sure your husband is with you is the same thing as saying: Are you sitting down? It’s what a person says before they give you the news that will knock you to the floor and turn out the lights.

The consultant with a blunt fringe took a deep breath before she said, ‘I am sorry to have to tell you …’

The hospital, God, just the smell of the place – the mashed potatoes and disinfectant and newly opened bandages – the only way to have kept that air from crawling into my cells would have been to stop breathing altogether.

I threw up when she told us, but I made it to the sink. Still holding Mia, there was no time to pass her to anyone.

Everything emptied.

Click here to keep reading this emotional story of love and obsession …

About the Author

Hannah Begbie studied Art History at Cambridge University. She went on to become a talent agent, repre­senting BAFTA and Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning writers and comedians for fifteen years until her youngest son was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

In 2015 she joined the board of The Cystic Fibrosis Trust, to raise awareness and advocate for the CF community. She also enrolled in The Novel Studio course at City University, winning that year’s new writing prize. The book she developed there became her debut novel, Mother. She has since won the RNA Joan Hessayon Award for New Writers 2018.

Hannah lives in north London with her husband, a screen­writer, and their two sons.

@hannahbegbie

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Also by Hannah Begbie

Mother

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