After Felix passed away, I never wanted to have another child – Mark might have been willing to consider it, but he knew how I felt and we had decided against it. I’d carried on functioning as a wife and mother – keeping house, providing comfort – but part of my heart had been burnt out, left cauterised and lifeless. It was like that line about courage being similar to a bank account: you write a certain number of cheques and one day it’s all gone. I wasn’t sure how much love I had left, and having another child struck me as a risk I couldn’t afford to take.

Then Ellie had started to take risks with herself, and I had discovered that the old fierce protective instinct was still there, and as powerful as ever. I hadn’t been able to save Felix; I wasn’t about to lose Ellie. I’d had to learn to be careful, though… to nudge her towards wanting to sort herself out, rather than laying down the law or trying to fix things for her.

It wasn’t quite the same for Mark. He cared about Ellie, and he felt responsible for her, and he was fond of her and tried to treat her fairly. But the strength of feeling just wasn’t there. It wasn’t his fault; there was no point expecting or wanting more. He couldn’t help what he didn’t feel, and the only living person who he was really devoted to was me.

At least Ellie and Mark had made peace, more or less. But what if this was it? What if there were no more chances?

What if Mark’s operation didn’t work, or there were complications and that was the end, right there in the operating theatre… just as it had been for Felix?

But I couldn’t think about that. If there was one thing that I’d learned, it was that you might as well hold on to hope for as long as possible. Possibilities were precious. That was what life was – all those different pathways ahead. Death cut them off. And despair was a small, premature death – the sense that the pathways were already closed off, even when they were still there.

That was how I’d felt, after Felix: as if the end for him was an end for me as well. Which it had been. But enough of me had survived for me to be here today, still believing that Mark could come through this.

At least I wasn’t alone. I’d tried to persuade Ellie and Ava to go back to the wedding with Toby, but both of them had insisted on staying with me until the operation was over and we knew how it had gone. And actually, I was grateful.

Ava put her magazine aside. It had a bride on the cover. Not half as pretty as she was, though.

‘I would have thought that was the last thing you’d want to read,’ I said to her.

‘Yeah,’ she said, and pulled a face. ‘Paula must be delighted.’