I needed to stay composed. I needed to keep this from my husband, but I have entirely lost control of myself. I am racked with sobs, waves of grief shooting to the surface like molten chunks of lava erupting from a volcano.

‘Babe,’ he says and sits down next to where I am crumpled on the floor by the sofa. He reaches out to take the laptop from my hands, but I’m clutching it tight. ‘What’s happening? Why are you on the floor?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, trying to come up with some kind of explanation for this meltdown. Eirik has never seen me like this in all the years we’ve been together – I pride myself on having found the perfect balance between showing emotions and controlling them.

‘Whose laptop is that?’ asks Eirik and when our eyes meet, I notice something cold in the way he’s looking at me.

‘It’s mine,’ I say.

‘Yours is at home. On the kitchen table. I used it to find your iPhone before I left – they’re synced.’

‘This is my work laptop. I… I’m feeling so overwhelmed because I just read through my patient notes for Leah Iverson. It’s just so sad, what happened to her. I think I just needed to cry it out.’

‘Can I see?’

‘No.’

‘Kristina.’

‘No.’ Eirik reaches for the laptop again, more forcefully this time, but I wrench it away from him and try to move away, but he’s so much stronger than me, and the movement brings another crash of pain and I cry even harder. ‘Eirik, you’re hurting me. Please. Let go.’ When I speak calmly and slowly to him, he snaps back into himself, realizing what a strange thing it is to do, to try to wrestle your badly injured wife to read her professional notes.

‘Sorry. I’m sorry, Krissy. Just, I guess I felt suddenly irrationally suspicious of you when you said it was your laptop when your laptop is definitely at home.’

‘You know I have two.’ Thank God everyone seems to have the same MacBook.

‘Yes. Look. I’m sorry. You look… Terrible. Can I do anything? Shall I make you a coffee?’

‘Yes, please.’