She looks at the carpet. ‘Will you be with me the whole time in the hospital? I don’t want to be alone, even with Bartholomew. I want you.’

So this is what’s bothering her.

‘I will be with you the whole time, except when they’re doing the actual operation,’ I promise her. ‘I’ll be stroking your hair when they make you go to sleep, and when you wake up afterwards, I’ll be there. I’m not allowed in the operating theatre in case of germs. They have to keep it really clean.’

Her chin wobbles. ‘But I don’t want to be without you. It’s scary.’

I blink my eyes rapidly to stem the tears threatening to well up. ‘I know it’s scary, sweetie. I know. But you won’t be awake during the operation. So you’ll have me with you all the times you’re awake. And do you know what? It’ll just feel like a few minutes that you’re asleep, but when you wake up you’ll have a whole new valve. Isn’t that amazing?’

‘What if I can’t go to sleep?’ she mutters, reaching for a strand of my hair and rubbing it between her fingers. She’s done this since she was a tiny girl.

‘You don’t need to worry about that, because they have this magic sleepy gas. It’s so funny! You breathe it in, and then the doctor will ask you to count backwards from ten or some other number, but you’ll start snoring before you finish. What do you think of that?’

Her smile is slow and wondrous. ‘No I won’t. I can count backwards.’

‘Yes you will. I promise you. It’ll feel lovely, like you’re floating through the clouds.’

What I don’t tell her, of course, is that watching your child go under is one of the most distressing things a parent can witness. Stroking your little girl’s hair as she drifts off under anaesthetic on a cold, clinical gurney is so strikingly similar to how I imagine it would be if she passed away that I can’t bear it. I really can’t.

I’m not sure how I’ll survive those hours after they wheel my unconscious child into theatre, sitting in the waiting room all alone as strangers operate on the most important organ in her body, rocking and waiting and praying for good news until my tears run dry and my knuckles turn white.

I honestly don’t.

CHAPTER 36

Marlowe

‘Mum? What’s up? Is Tabs okay?’

I hurry into the ladies’ loos at work, praying they’re empty. They are. As soon as my mother’s name flashed up on my phone, I bolted from my desk like a greyhound after a mechanical rabbit.

‘We’re at A&E,’ she says in a shaky voice.