It stands for Fatal Foetal Abnormality, the woman says. I had a diagnosis of Fatal Foetal Abnormality last year at twenty-one weeks. It took us two years to get pregnant. Two whole years. And then they did the scan and they told us. There was nothing they or anyone else could do. He wouldn’t live more than five minutes outside the womb.

The woman’s voice is low and calm. She has crinkle lines around her eyes that make her look as if she’d easily laugh, in other circumstances.

I’m sorry for your loss, she says again. It might bring you some comfort to think of the words of David in Psalm 139. Your eyes saw my unformed body. All my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.

He had no days, the woman says. If he had survived the birth, he would have asphyxiated in minutes, in great suffering and pain.

But he chose you, she says.

Who chose me?

God chose you. And your baby – he chose you too, to be his mother, no matter how brief the time.

How can it be both?

Excuse me? 72

If God chose me, how could it also be the baby’s choice?

She glances over at the others. Pastor Rick is earnestly talking with someone else, Jen is frowning over her cell phone, and Rebekah is laughing with Steve; nobody catches her eye.

God has a plan for us, she says, and it’s up to us whether or not we fulfil it.

My love, the woman says after a moment, I can see you mean well, but you know nothing, nothing of life.

She says it tenderly, with great care. They have been shouted and jeered at all day – even spat upon. No one has talked with such kindness, as if they too are concerned about you, as if they too can see through your hoodie and jeans and zits to your immortal shining soul.

She focuses on the woman’s lips, and tries to remember the answer because the right words, now, will win the woman over, and the wrong ones will lose her forever. Out of nowhere, she wonders what it would be like to kiss the woman. The shock of the thought repulses her and she feels her neck and cheeks flush with heat.

Hi there. Rebekah sidles over. Is there something we can help you with today?

She feels the woman’s eyes still on her for a second. But then the woman steps back.

No, thank you, she says to Rebekah, and smiles a bright smile. I’ve got to be going.

Can I interest you in one of our pamphlets? Rebekah calls, but the woman’s already walking away.

Look back. Look back. 73

But of course she doesn’t look back.

All good? Pastor Rick says.