‘It’s okay,’ he said and kissed her forehead. ‘What formula milk do you want her to have?’

‘You choose.’ Her voice was croaky.

Max sat in the corner of the dimly lit room while Maddy went to sleep. The midwife showed him how to feed his daughter with a bottle. After, as Emily slept, he watched the sun rise across the rooftops until the transformation from night into day was complete.

Max brought them home the following lunchtime and encouraged Maddy to rest while he saw to Emily. He enjoyed feeding her, listening to her faint snuffling sounds and smelling the soft powdered freshness. Maddy hadn’t taken much interest in her, all she wanted to do was sleep. The midwife told them Maddy had a touch of baby blues, that she needed time to adjust and how lucky that Max could be around to help.

On Saturday, Maddy was first out of bed. Max heard the grating noise of her pulling back the garage doors. When he looked out of the landing window, he saw her dragging out an old Chinese rug wrapped in plastic. It was one he’d taken up from her mother’s bedroom when he first moved in. It needed a good clean. He banged on the window but she didn’t hear him, so he ran downstairs and out the front door.

She wheeled out a Silver Cross pram full of rusty birdcages and planks of wood. Everything smelled dusty and mouldy.

‘What are you doing?’ he called, stopping the pram with both hands. ‘You should be resting.’

‘I’m sick of resting, it feels lazy.’ She stomped back into the garage and came out carrying a string-less guitar.

‘Let me take that,’ he said grabbing it from her. Behind her were oil paintings, an old Belfast sink and stacks of newspapers tied up with rope.

‘Go and get some clothes on,’ she said, snatching the guitar back. He looked down at his boxers.

‘All right, but you need to wait for me.’

By the time he came back out, Maddy had stacked each item on top of the other in a straight line along the driveway. Max stood on the front doorstep, watching her. She stopped to acknowledge him standing there.

‘Everything must go,’ she said and disappeared into the gloomy depths of the garage.

‘What do you want to do with it all?’ he said as she emerged again, this time with a brown ceramic bowl that said ‘Dog’. ‘And why now?’

Out of the bowl she lifted a scruffy leather collar. There were tears in her eyes as she handed them both to him. ‘We need to get a dog.’

‘Whatever you want but are you sure about getting rid of all these things?’ He didn’t know how to stop her building this wall.

‘What else should I do with it?’ She held out a set of long-handled paintbrushes. ‘Do you want these?’