‘I know, but I just couldn’t face it then.’

‘You poor thing. You must see the doctor or the midwife next week, just in case there’s a problem they should know about.’

‘Oh, it’s probably quite normal,’ she said absently.

The morning sickness which had been such a pain for Willow had thankfully stopped some time ago, but now she suffered with awful indigestion. That’s why she hadn’t been able to eat any breakfast, despite Rick’s encouragement. Bless him, he had tried so hard to tempt her to eat, but the acid rising up from her stomach to her throat was hideously vile and all she could manage was a cup of very weak tea. Her craving for salt and vinegar crisps had completely gone. In fact, she didn’t think she could face another crisp ever again. Perhaps it was all that unhealthy fat and salt which had triggered the indigestion? Whatever the reason, it had made her lose a bit of weight, not that she’d shared that with Rick. He’d only fuss.

‘Have you remembered the scan photo?’ he asked.

‘Yes, it’s in my bag all nice and safe.’

Ten days ago they’d been for the second scan and unlike the first time, Rick had insisted they find out the sex of the baby. Willow had given in, knowing it meant so much to him. She also suspected that because Martha and Tom now knew they were expecting a girl, Rick felt he should know the sex of their child too.

‘A girl!’ he kept saying when he drove them home afterwards, as if no such thing had ever existed before. ‘Just think, we’re going to have a daughter!’

A daughter.

She, Willow Miller, was going to be the mother of a little girl. The thought both delighted and terrified her. Rick had already begun decorating the bedroom that would be for his Little Princess, as he now referred to the baby. Nothing, he claimed, would be too much trouble in creating the perfect home for his daughter.

Since the day of that scan, Willow had started to have the most vivid and disturbing dreams at night which had her waking in a panic that she’d mislaid the baby. ‘I’m sure I put her in her cot,’ she said in the dreams to Rick, ‘but she’s not there now.’

‘Think, Willow!’ he’d bellow. ‘Think what you did with our daughter!’

But there were worse dreams than this that came to her now. Heart-thumping nightmares which she’d thought were a thing of the past.

Not wanting to dwell on that this morning, not when it was such a lovely day, she thought instead of how much she was looking forward to seeing her mother again.

‘By the way,’ she said, suddenly remembering what Mum had planned for them to do. ‘Mum wants to take Martha and me shopping this afternoon. She thought you and Tom and Ellis could hang out together, maybe go for a walk and have a drink at the pub.’