On the evenings that I didn’t see Seth, I would usually stay in with the professor. His wife was still trying to decide what she wanted, and I felt sorry for him spending every night by himself. He must have had other friends, but perhaps they felt awkward given the circumstances, or maybe they didn’t even know what was going on. Either way, he seemed content to just hang out with me – and he started teaching me how to cook. I’ll admit, I was bloody useless back then – could barely bake myself a spud – but the professor taught me how to do a traditional Sunday roast, and how to test if spaghetti was done by throwing it against the kitchen wall.

We used to eat dinner off our laps in front of the box, then he would get stuck in to the red wine. I sometimes thought that he might be drinking a bit too much, and it used to make him maudlin if he had more than a glass or two, but I didn’t feel like I could tell him off. The professor was a grown man – who was I to educate him on how to deal with his marriage problems?

It took him a few weeks to open up about the reasons behind their estrangement, and actually, when I think back, it was probably an accident that he told me at all. We had gone into his study because he wanted to lend me a book, and when I was in there, I spotted a whole shelf of baby books. There were titles that covered everything, from eating the right diet while pregnant to anthologies of names, to self-help stuff about falling pregnant in the first place. I was curious as to why there was such a massive collection, and when I asked the professor about it, the whole story came tumbling out.

He and his wife had tried for a baby for years without success, he told me. They’d done all the tests, been poked and prodded and whatnot, only to find out that a baby would never be on the cards. The professor had assumed it would be down to him, but in fact, it was the other way around. His poor wife didn’t have the capacity to carry a baby – not even if they went through IVF. And while the professor had made his peace with the idea of not becoming a parent, his wife had not and would not. It was this that had caused all the rows, and was the reason behind her decision to walk out.

I knew a little bit about this, because my own parents had struggled to conceive me. I arrived a long time after they had given up on me, and so I knew how much I meant to them, and how treasured I was. I had yet to meet the professor’s wife, but my heart went out to her. It still does – even more so now than then – because now I know what a wonderful privilege it is to bear a child. And it is you who taught me that, Evangeline.