Patrick realized that he could barely recall the way they had been together when they were happy. He remembered bits and pieces – arms round one another on the sofa, her whispering ‘don’t die’ urgently into his ear as he laughed and told her he had no intention of doing so. Their shared jokes and rituals. Singing Take That songs in the style of elderly pub singers. The way she had to turn the duvet round so the end with the poppers was always at the bottom. Taking baths together. Date nights and movies and weekly supermarket shops. Normal, happy married life.

After a year apart, he stopped wearing his wedding ring. He wondered if she still wore hers.

It still seemed impossible that everything had changed so irrevocably, so quickly.

When he thought back to it, the first warning sign had been the departure of Gill’s sense of humour, flying away on stealthy black batwings, so quietly amid all the chaos of Bonnie’s birth and first couple of months that it took him a while to realize it had gone. At the time, of course, he put it down to the veil of tiredness that had settled over them both. Neither saw much of the funny side of anything – how could they, when sleep only came in such mean portions? But Gill had always been so funny. It was what had made him fall in love with her; her bone-dry, intelligent, self-deprecating and surreal humour. Tiredness used to bring it out in her – after a long, tough day in court she would stagger back in through the door and within minutes they would both be roaring with laughter at her impressions of the hapless jurors or the jobsworth court clerks.

After the seventh consecutive day of him coming in from work to find Gill sobbing, he realized he hadn’t heard her laugh about anything in almost a month, even though the five-month-old Bonnie had a giggle that would melt the heart of Attila the Hun. Once she had stopped crying, Gill would list their daughter’s new achievements every day with just a tiny almost-sad smile, relating escapades that would previously have had her in gales of laughter.

But postnatal depression was normal, wasn’t it? They had talked about it, and the three of them went to see the GP together. Patrick carried Bonnie in her Baby Bjorn, loving the feel of her warm fluttery breaths on his chest as the GP got Gill to complete a checklist of symptoms: Irritability – check. Tearfulness – definitely. Inability to cope with simple daily tasks – yes. Mood swings – check. Difficulty sleeping – well, duh. Lack of appetite – the weight had dropped off her.

Gill cried steadily throughout the appointment, and added a couple of extra tick boxes of her own to the bottom of the list: Guilt. Hopelessness.