It has taken me until now to understand this sequence properly, as I sit in a hospital side room waiting for news of Lois Archer’s child and my best friend.

I’m sorry, I tell him. I am truly sorry. And I did – do – love you.

Jasper came back with three polystyrene beakers clutched like a sloppy bouquet in front of him. Carefully he handed one each to Lois and me, then sat down again. I sipped the weak liquid and blinked at the clock. It was two twenty-seven in the morning. Time seemed to be playing tricks. It was only five minutes since I had last looked, when Jasper offered to fetch the coffee, but it could easily have been two hours. I licked my dry lips and resumed my study of the floor and the toes of my shoes. The minutes creaked by and painfully turned into an hour. Outside, the thunderstorm had passed. It was still raining, I could see the drops bursting like tiny ripe fruits against the window, but the air was fresher and there was a welcome breeze stirring.

At last a nurse looked in. She asked if we were still waiting for news of Melissa Archer and when Jasper said yes she asked us to follow her. We marched in a silent line, none of us able to speak or even look at each other. Unvoiced, unworded bargains did form themselves in my head now.

If only she’s all right. Let her be Mel again.

The doctor was at a busy nursing station looking through a sheaf of notes. Even though it was the deadest hour of the night there were bright lights here and people moving briskly. When we identified ourselves he motioned us into an office cubicle. He spoke drily, unemphatically, but the words flared in my head.

Repaired. Transfusion. Optimistic. Recovery, he said.

Mel was going to live, I understood. The bags under the man’s eyes, the way the overhead lights showed the pores in his skin and the creases in his neck, the smell of anaesthesia, all became hyper-real, vividly illuminated by our collective relief. Lois groped for my hand and I put my arm out to support her. I realised how tiny and light she was, and that she was quivering like a bird.

Jasper rubbed his hand over his face. I could feel the wash of relief in him, a big, heavy tide, with no undertow of happiness yet. That would come later. ‘Can we see her?’ he asked.

‘Are you all relatives?’

Lois lifted her chin. ‘I am her mother.’

‘I am her fiancé,’ Jasper said in a low voice. I felt rather than heard Lois’s indrawn breath. This was the first she had heard.

I realised I was smiling, a stiff smile that almost hurt my lips and cheeks. Everything was going to be all right. ‘I’m a friend,’ I murmured.