We set up a nursery in the flat. Luke worked longer hours at the timber yard; he said he was trying to save extra money. It meant we didn’t see so much of each other, though. He felt a little distant, but that was okay. It was only going to be for a while, just to save up a bit and get ahead. It was all ways of planning for when the baby came. Luke worked extra hours and I sorted out the cot, the baby clothes, the nursery, all of that.

My waters broke on the first of May. Luke was at work; he didn’t answer his phone straight away. Mum was the one who drove me to the hospital.

At the hospital, things moved very, very quickly. Maybe there would never have been enough time for Luke to get there.

My labour had started in earnest when his text came through.

Sorry. I can’t do this, it said.

Everything just fell apart then. The whole picture I had set up for myself. My life with Luke, a future, a family. A pretty picture-postcard my mum could enjoy. And now none of it was going to be real.

I moved with Charlie back into Mum and Dad’s house. Luke stayed in his same flat in town, then moved away, to Scotland, a few months later.

I couldn’t stop crying. That was the first sign that something was wrong.

Nobody saw it though, somehow. Perhaps Dad assumed I was just upset about the break-up. Maybe Mum just pretended that I was only missing Luke.

Mum told her friends and neighbours that he had had to take a job up north. She didn’t tell anyone that Luke had left me.

I was not coping well with Charlie. He was only a baby, but I got angry with him all the time. It felt as if he knew exactly how to time his bouts of crying so as to tip me over the edge.

I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I didn’t really have anyone to tell. My uni friends had all moved on. The mums from my NCT class were all coping fine. Dad was in the background, happy as always to let Mum take the lead. And Mum just kept saying what a lovely baby he was, picking him up and pinching his cheeks.

I’m not sure how long exactly Charlie had been crying for that night. In my mind, it was six, seven hours. Non-stop.

Everything was a haze for me. It was as though I was standing outside myself, watching. Seeing exactly what I was about to do, but utterly, completely powerless to stop it.

Still now, in my dreams sometimes, I can see myself lifting up the cushion. I can hear the wave of silence and relief as I press it down.

Mum found us. Thank God Mum found us.