Mark came back with the bag and we phoned Ingrid and the girls. Mark did most of the talking and once again I was grateful to him. I didn’t want to cry, and I didn’t want to frighten anybody. I didn’t want to make anything worse. Maybe I secretly believed that if I was very good, if I behaved myself and didn’t make a fuss, everything would turn out all right.

The evening wore on. It was long since dark by then, and the only sound was the faint hum of the strip lighting. We were still the only people there, and it was like being in a tunnel but without being able to move on or free ourselves. Or perhaps it was more like being trapped in a cave and waiting for rescuers to come and find you.

I remembered how it had felt one time when I was little and Mum had been late to pick me up from school. All the other children had gone; there was nobody else around, nobody but me. The playground seemed huger than ever. I had found a little heart-shaped chip of stone set in the pebbledash walls and stood there tracing it with my finger, hoping for her, willing her to arrive. And then she had appeared, hurrying towards me, all worry and haste and love. And I had been so grateful and so relieved, and the world had righted itself and carried on.

The next person to come into the waiting room was a doctor, and he wasn’t carrying Felix in his arms.

I looked at his face and knew at once what was about to tell us. It was obvious from the pain he felt, and also the sense of duty. He didn’t want to. But he had to tell us.

It was bad news. The worst.

The world as I knew it had ended, and it would never be right again.

The doctor explained what had happened and we had no choice but to take it in.

Felix had died on the operating table. His little heart had stopped and he had slipped away from us and from the world, and we would never see him alive again.

My heart stopped too, but its machinery carried on. I was still there, able to see Mark next to me and the doctor opposite us, and my hands moving and clasping each other, as if to pray, before breaking apart and coming to rest on my knees.

I trembled and tears came out of my eyes but offered no relief. Next to me Mark argued and blustered and shook, wanting it to be someone’s fault, needing someone to blame. I put my hand on his arm and quieted him, and then he cried too. We were tiny in the face of what had happened, two small figures sitting side by side on the waiting room sofa on the edge of the whirling storm that had taken our son away.

Nobody had made a mistake. Nobody got anything wrong. It shouldn’t have happened, but it had: lightning struck twice. One fluke had followed another, and our baby was gone.