She couldn’t have looked more different to the broken wreck of his imagination. She strode into the room with her jaw set and her determined expression on, the one she had worn in court. She was dressed casually but neatly in jeans, trainers and a Superdry lumberjack shirt, and her hair even seemed to have fresh highlights in it.

She looked exactly the same – no, Pat thought, much better than he had seen her look since Bonnie’s birth. Not happy exactly, but gone was the pale, anxious face she’d worn in the first few months of Bonnie’s life. If he had had to pick one word to describe her, it would be ‘relieved’. For a second Pat felt resentment – no wonder, she’s probably had eighteen months of unbroken sleep – and this was immediately replaced with a flood of such strong emotion that he had to stare at one of the halogen spotlights in the ceiling to stop tears flooding into his eyes.

‘Hi Patrick,’ she said, and he flinched. She only used to call him by his full name when she was cross with him.

‘Hi Gillian,’ he replied, standing up and smiling at her to let her know that he was joking by reciprocating with her own unabbreviated moniker. Nobody ever called her Gillian.

‘Pat,’ she corrected, and a brief return smile flickered across her face. They were at eye level with one another. Pat could hear his heart thrumming in his chest, but couldn’t tell if it was from anxiety or love. He handed her the lilies.

‘These are for you.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, sniffing them deeply and getting a little bit of orange pollen on her nose. ‘I love lilies.’

‘I know.’

Of course he knew, Pat thought. They’d had lilies at their wedding.

‘But you know that,’ she added, and he felt a tiny bit better. She put the lilies on a small table and turned back to him.

‘Are you going to give me a hug, then?’ she asked, and for the first time, he saw the vulnerability in her eyes.

‘Of course,’ he said, and drew her into his embrace. She wrapped her arms around his chest and hugged him so tightly that he had to pant slightly to be able to breathe. She wasn’t crying, but then she’d never really been much of a crier, at least not until the PND.

‘Oh, honey,’ he said. She didn’t smell like his wife anymore. Not unpleasant, just different. ‘You look great,’ he added, after a couple of minutes. He pushed her gently away so he could scrutinize her, and he saw that, close up, she did look older and paler, but it was all so much better than he’d feared that at first he hadn’t been able to tell any difference.

‘Nice T-shirt,’ she commented with a slight smile.