I want to prove her wrong. And once I have met my son, my Leo, I will make sure she knows she made it happen.

Yet as I sit here, trying to rehearse what I’ll say to her, my brain starts melting and the words start jumbling. It matters so much that I get this right.

Unless . . . it’s her birthday tomorrow: I never forget. I could send her a card, with a copy of Leo’s photo. The message could be simple, so that even if bloody Tim reads it, he wouldn’t understand the significance.

But Kerry would.

Will it make her want to see me again? I can’t know, but I can hope . . .

‘Joel? We’re all set.’ Edwina stands halfway down the corridor, beside a door.

I stand up and a horrible sensation starts at the bottom of my chest. Is this the ICD? Am I about to be shocked and end any hope of being a dad?

No. I smile when I realize the truth. It’s not my heart misfiring, it’s something more normal. Butterflies.

The glass in the door is papered over with pages from superhero comics, so no one can see through. As Edwina grabs the handle, I see Batman.

And then I see Leo.

He is lying on a mat, with a baby gym arching over him. I can’t see his face at first, but his body is solid, even chunkier than I expected in a bright green onesie. His hips look disproportionally wide. Is there something wrong with his legs? Why haven’t they warned me?

I realize it’s probably the nappy underneath.

He has so much hair, loose brown curls covering his head.

I wait, not knowing what to say or do. A plump blonde woman sits opposite him on the floor: his foster mother. She smiles at me, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She beckons me over.

As I approach, I am almost afraid to look at his face. I’ve been told that he is developmentally delayed; that the drugs Zoë took may continue to affect his behaviour and his learning. What if I am so shallow that I find him too strange, too different? Impossible to love.

I look at his face.

I know you.

I am flooded by certainty. He looks like me in my own baby photos. Even if I’d seen him in the street, I think I would have known he was mine. People say it’s a biological evolution, that babies resemble their dads more at this age to reassure them the child is theirs. It works.

Leo stares at me. He doesn’t recognize me. I am nothing to him. Worse than nothing. A person who wished for him never to exist.