That’s when he went into the kitchen and opened the note. He admitted to me after that he thought it might have been a Dear John. Although she hadn’t said anything to me, he’d said they’d been having a few problems. She’d seemed cold and distant. He’d wondered if she was having an affair.

My Laura would never have had an affair.

He couldn’t take in the words he was reading at first, he told me. They didn’t make any sense. The writing didn’t even look like hers. There was something off about it. ‘Too jaggy,’ he’d said. ‘There were rips across the paper, as if she’d scrawled really heavily,’ he’d said. His brain couldn’t process what he was reading. She was sorry. She’d had no choice. She didn’t want to hurt the children any more. She didn’t want to risk them growing up to become how she was. Weak. Stupid. Ugly.

My Laura was none of those things.

She’d never been any of those things.

She’d wished she’d had the courage to do this a long time ago, but she’d been too cowardly. And she’d wanted to see if she could change. If she could fix things. Become likeable and loveable.

How that broke me. My darling, darling Laura was always likeable and she was the most loveable creature who’d ever roamed the Earth. My life had been completed the day she was first placed in my arms – the love I felt for her was the purest, most powerful force in the world. I thought I’d known love with Aaron, had worried through my pregnancy that I wouldn’t find enough extra love for a new baby, but when she was here, it was almost as if my heart grew. I had love enough for both of them. But she was the icing on the cake and I adored her, perhaps even more than I had Aaron. As he’d grown, connected with his father, I’d been left out of their games. But Laura, she was my girl. My best friend. My everything.

But it hadn’t been enough to save her.

‘Tell my mum that I love her and she’s not to blame herself. There’s nothing she could have done to fix me,’ the letter had read, and I was angry then. She should have given me the chance. She should have let me try to fix her. Not that I ever thought she needed fixing. To me, she was perfection.