‘True.’ I calculated. I was twenty-six weeks pregnant. In one month I would be thirty weeks. In one month I would be gone. One month seemed forever, but Maxine insisted it wasn’t, like a mother telling a child, Be patient, the journey will be over before you know it. In the meantime, I had my own part to play in preparing for my escape. This mostly meant trying to keep things as calm with Zac as I possibly could.

I wrinkled my nose. ‘Stinky tea?’ It was an old tease between me and Zac that I hated the smell of lapsang. I was using my I’m trying to be brave against all odds voice.

He put the mug down, stood, folded me into his arms, whispered into my hair, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

My mobile was a prop, held by a hand that was seemingly too distracted to realise it was there. It wasn’t difficult to make myself cry. The pregnancy hormones helped with that.

Zac’s face was frozen in horror. ‘Is it the baby?’

For him to believe I was distressed hurt him. The realisation came with a stab of guilt that made me dizzy. It should have occurred to me he would think that. It seemed too terrible a thing to do to him, despite everything.

Still, I pushed myself on. I let the phone fall from my hand onto the daisy-covered grass. ‘It’s my grandmother. The care home just called.’ Saying this made the fake tears flow harder, because I knew there would come a day when this would happen for real.

Zac did exactly what I knew he would. He picked up the phone, accidentally twisting out a dandelion as he lifted it. He checked the recent call log, saw that the care home had in fact called me a few minutes ago, and the duration was five minutes. Maxine was behind the call.

‘What did they want?’

‘She passed away early this morning. In her sleep.’

‘Died, not passed away.’ He corrected me in exactly the way I expected.

I accepted his correction. ‘She died this morning.’ Thanks to Maxine, my grandmother had already vacated the building. I felt a twinge that the lovely women who looked after her had been told this lie, too.

The small exchange was part of a private game I secretly played. I had a toy as a child. Because it was from my parents, I kept that toy long after I outgrew it. It was a large plastic ball covered in coloured shapes. The shapes were buttons. If you pushed the orange triangle, there would be a squeak. If you pushed the green square, it would sound a bell. The blue oval resulted in a moo.

Zac had buttons too, and I needed to push them sometimes, to check that the consequence was as predicted. It was like tossing a coin into the air to make sure that gravity still worked – the basic material conditions of the universe that I shared with Zac remained the same, and I must not doubt this. I must not doubt myself.