I stare down at the little boy nestled in my arms, sleeping peacefully now. I lie him in the empty drawer, lined with soft blankets and padding. I could leave him a while and join Erna and her parents in the sitting room, but I don’t want him to be all alone.

Instead, I take out Walter’s letter, the one he sent the moment he heard of the birth, and read it for the thousandth time.

My Darling,

I’m scribbling this note in dreadful haste. I received the telegram this morning from Erna with the news of our son’s birth and I’m in such torment. I am of course relieved and overjoyed to know you are both well, but thinking of you bearing this alone and soon having to part with this baby, I know how this must be killing you. I have walked the streets of London all morning, tears pouring down my cheeks, thinking of you.

It’s not been easy at home. I suppose I have been rather difficult to live with. Anna knows how I think of you. If she is jealous, she never says, and she is handling this situation with fortitude and bravery. I admire her more than ever. And I can tell you, she will shower our baby and my poor cousins with such love. We will do our very best to make them feel at home here. I know that is little consolation. But in my heart of hearts, I’m sure that one day it will be possible for you to be a proper mother to our son. I hope and pray to God that that day will come sooner than we all think.

Stay strong, my darling Hetty. Things will get better – and please know that I love you more than ever before. This will never change.

You are in my heart, now and always,

Walter.

‘Hetty?’ Erna pokes her head around the door. ‘Are you okay?’

‘He’s asleep,’ I say, folding the letter and putting it away. ‘I didn’t want to leave him.’

She sits next to me and smiles at the baby asleep in his nest of blankets. His two little fists are clenched and stick straight up above his head.

‘Oh, Hetty,’ she says, ‘isn’t he just perfect?’

I look at my friend in wonder. She’s seen me at my lowest, she has watched me give birth, has cleaned up my blood, is risking her life for me. How can I ever repay such a person?

‘I’ve thought of a name,’ I tell her. ‘He is going to be called Stanley.’

18 August 1939

For three weeks and two days, the sun rises and sets. Very early in the morning of the twenty-fourth day since Stanley was born, I am wide awake and stand at the little dormer window in Erna’s attic room.

I watch him sleeping, cuddled in close to my chest. His eyes flicker beneath the pale lids, dark lashes delicately curled. His chest rises and falls, calm and gentle, and he breathes through partly opened lips. Every now and then his little brow furrows, as if he knows what is to become of him. As if he is struggling to understand it all.