Lucy and Simon knew they were expecting a boy and had already given him a name – Milo – but Willow wasn’t convinced it was a good idea.

‘I want to keep it as a surprise,’ she said, sliding in beside Rick. She loved the expensive Egyptian cotton bedlinen he bought, it was so much nicer than her cheap Ikea sheets and duvet covers. He had the linen laundered every week and she could forgive him all his finicky ways for the pleasure this wonderfully extravagant luxury gave her.

‘But it could be a surprise tomorrow,’ he said.

She smiled indulgently at him. ‘You’re so excited, aren’t you?’

He smiled back at her. ‘Nothing wrong in that, is there?’

‘Were you like this as a boy? Did you find your presents and sneakily open them before your birthday or Christmas Day?’

His face turned serious. ‘No, I never did that.’

Hearing the change of tone in his voice, she said, ‘You never speak of your parents, do you?’

‘What’s to say? I told you before that my dad died when I was sixteen and my mother two years later.’

‘How did they die?’ she asked.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Because I want to know more about them. And because they made you, and now you’ve made what would have been their grandchild.’

‘Ah yes, the circle of life,’ he said with what sounded like heavy irony. ‘There’s not much to say, other than they met, married and had me, then things went awry. My father lost his job, began drinking to drown his sorrow and shame and ended up dead in the gutter one day. I mean that literally. He stepped into the path of an oncoming car. Dead on impact. My mother never really recovered from the shock. She went to pieces and it was down to me to hold things together. You could say it forced me to grow up fast.’

‘And your mother? How did she die?’

‘She killed herself. I came home from university one weekend and found her dead in the bath. She’d slashed her wrists. According to the post-mortem, she must have done it the day before she knew I was coming home. That way the body wouldn’t have been left to decompose for too long. It was considerate of her, don’t you think? Less of a mess to deal with.’

Willow was shocked, not just at what Rick had shared with her, but by the flatness of his voice.

‘I can’t imagine how dreadful that must have been for you,’ she said.

‘No, you wouldn’t be able to. Which is why I don’t like talking about my parents. There’s nothing to be gained from it, so please don’t raise the matter again. And please don’t tell your mother and sister about this, it’s private. I don’t want anyone else to know about it. Do you promise?’

‘I promise,’ she said.

As though to make it clear the conversation was over, he switched off the light.