Hilary stood stock still in the street and looked up. An upstairs window in the Woodburys’ house was open. She could see Charlotte up there, standing with the phone held to her face, the other hand clutching a lit cigarette, talking and laughing as if nothing had happened. As if only two days before she hadn’t stood on Hilary’s doorstep, shaking with rage, thrusting her little boy’s bleeding arm forwards, spouting accusations, demanding that the dog be destroyed.

Hilary might have got over it, if it hadn’t been for that laughter.

That was a Saturday, and when Monday morning came around, she rang the school and informed them that her dog had died so she wouldn’t be coming in. She read the headmistress’s disapproval in the brief pause before she responded, but Hilary didn’t care. She had gone beyond that. The depression that came over her was worse than anything she had experienced before. Years later, she would pay for a therapist to tell her that the grief suppressed with each miscarriage had come gushing upwards at the death of her beloved pet. But at the time all she could do was walk around the rooms of the basement flat, feeling something clawing at her insides, the dreadful injustice of it, the senseless waste. It was a silent internal kind of grief, one she couldn’t communicate to or share with Greg, who was at a loss as to how he could help her.

Then one day, late into the week after Bella’s death, Hilary stood at the French windows, watching the Woodbury kids outside in the garden. An inflatable paddling pool had been filled with water, and the little boy and girl were in their swimming costumes, kicking water at each other and squealing with delight. Nearby, their father stood with a garden hose, laughing and spraying them as they jumped and splashed. The way the sun hit the water, the obvious joy of the children – it was such a perfect scene. Love and summer. Happiness and innocence. It rose up at Hilary, like a rebuke, and the thing that had ruptured inside her flew to the surface. She let out a scream full of wildness and rage and despair, bent double with the force of all that emotion.

The children didn’t hear. They kept on laughing and playing. But their father looked around. She saw his face, the smile falling away, replaced by something more thoughtful and grave.

She had drawn away and lain down on the couch, sobbing so loudly she almost didn’t hear the tapping at the door.

‘I came to say I’m sorry.’

There he was, standing beyond the French windows. His low voice, his gentle eyes.