She just shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

‘So I couldn’t come over,’ Lorcan said. ‘I had to be there for her, because I was the only person who knew. This was our loss – even if Sophie felt it was hers alone. I did feel it too. I really did.’ His voice wavered and Jo reached across the table and stroked his arm.

‘I know,’ she said, as her own voice cracked.

‘That was the beginning of the end for us,’ he said. ‘I came out of the situation knowing that I wanted a child. Sooner rather than later. I know I’m not thirty yet, that I have loads of time. But Sophie and I had been together a long time, it felt like it was the right time to move things up a level. And once the notion of a baby had been planted in my head, I couldn’t shake it. But Sophie… it had the opposite effect on her.’

‘She wanted to wait?’ Jo asked.

‘She wanted to remain child-free. She said she’d had some thoughts about it all before, but this had solidified it in her head. She didn’t want children, not then and not ever. We tried to work through it. At first, I thought she was just trying to protect herself from getting hurt again, you know. Putting a wall up. I thought I’d give her time to process our loss, but she seemed okay about it. In fact, she seemed relieved. That’s what I couldn’t get my head around,’ he said, shaking his head as if he was still completely thrown by it.

‘So I asked her and she told me, told me that she’d hated being pregnant. Even for that short a time. It felt wrong. She’d felt panicked. Trapped. She knew then it was something she’d never want to do again.’

Jo didn’t know what to say. Like Lorcan, her loss had made her know for definite that one day she wanted to be a parent again. That she couldn’t imagine her life without her own child in it.

Lorcan blew out a long slow breath. ‘I tried to convince myself it wouldn’t matter to me and I could learn to live with it because she was Sophie, you know. My Sophie. She was the prize, and that prize should’ve been enough, I told myself. I loved her. So much. But that’s when I learned that all those shitty songs and poems and stuff are right. Sometimes love isn’t enough. Not for me and not for her.’

Jo wiped the tears from her eyes. He was absolutely right. Love wasn’t always enough, and love didn’t always last. Not healthy love. Love that nourishes and cherishes.