She had thrown herself on the bed, her body heavy with exhaustion. Maybe this was because of the small being that had anchored itself in her uterus, sending out waves of hormones, throwing everything off balance, or maybe it was because she had spent the night lying awake worrying about it. Sometimes she put out a hand and touched the wall that separated her bedroom from the house next door as if Ross’s presence could somehow communicate itself through the masonry and into her body, give her some sort of sign as to how he was feeling about her. She told herself that there was the chance that he might be happy about this news – elated. Hadn’t she glimpsed his profound disappointment when he’d told her of his infertility – a misapprehension, as it turned out? A child of his own – his flesh and blood – surely this would change things? But whenever she tried to imagine his face when he learned of her pregnancy, all she could envision was him recoiling in shock, horrified at the trap she had snared him in, even though, if anyone had been duped and misled, it was her.

Hunger eventually drove her downstairs. She had skipped breakfast and now it was almost two o’clock, and as she descended the stairs, she wondered how it could be possible that a person could feel nauseous and ravenous at the same time. The house felt empty, a cathedral silence hanging over the hall, but when she came into the kitchen, she found her mother at the table hunched over a mug of coffee. There was no laptop open on the table, no papers spread out, she wasn’t scrolling through her phone. Instead, Abi was just sitting with her hands wrapped around the steaming mug, her gaze fixed on the garden outside. Her mother was always busy, always occupied with one task or another, which was why it struck Eva as strange to observe her now simply lost in thought. Her face appeared blotched, a downward drag to her skin.

‘Are you okay?’ Eva asked as she padded across to the fridge.

‘I’m fine,’ Abi said. She turned her gaze now to Eva but there was still a distracted air about her.

‘Where is everyone?’

‘Your dad’s gone for a cycle. I don’t know where the girls are,’ she answered, wearily.

Eva peered into the fridge where her eyes fell on a Tupperware jar of leftovers from last night’s dinner. Seized with a sudden hunger, she put the tub on the worktop, peeled back the lid and took a fork from the cutlery drawer and tucked right in. Abi watched her for a moment.