Ian found a quiet corner away from the main building and called their landline number. If he was honest, he was dreading speaking to Emma. She was always so down and short-tempered with him these days. He could picture her sitting on the sofa in their living room, whiling away the hours with daytime television or a book, or thumbing a magazine, mournful and dejected.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked as soon as she answered. Then straight away realized his mistake. He should have said, ‘How are you?’ For clearly she wasn’t OK.

But to his surprise Emma replied, ‘I’m good, thank you. A lot better.’ Her voice sounded brighter too.

‘Are you? That’s great. Sorry about this morning. I hate it when we argue.’

‘So do I,’ Emma said. ‘I was partly to blame. You were right about me getting back to work. I’m going to phone them this afternoon and suggest I start back on Monday. Anne, our midwife, persuaded me to. She visited earlier.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Ian said, slightly disappointed that he hadn’t been the one responsible for Emma’s change of heart. ‘Well, that’s good.’

‘Yes. We had a long chat. She knows exactly the right thing to say. She doesn’t mind talking about what happened to David. She said I could talk to her whenever I wanted to. She understood. I even asked her what David looked like.’

Ian grimaced. ‘I thought we’d agreed it was better we didn’t know.’

‘Yes, but I’m glad I did ask. I was expecting her to describe something horrible, but do you know what she said? That although he was born different, he was beautiful in his own sweet way.’

‘Good.’

‘Anne said wherever David was now, she knew he was happy and at peace. It really helped, Ian. I should have asked her before about David.’

‘I’m glad it helped,’ Ian said.

‘We also talked about when I should go back to work and she said there was no medical reason why I shouldn’t return now. Indeed, she thought it was a good idea, but I should take it slowly. She gave me some literature on contraception. It’s part of her job as a midwife. She said perhaps we’d like to consider sterilization, as it’s so important we don’t have another child given the same thing is likely to happen again.’

‘I don’t see how she can be so certain,’ Ian said. ‘We need all the facts before we can make that type of decision. Those DNA kits should be here tomorrow.’

Ian immediately realized his mistake and was expecting Emma to snap at him for mentioning DNA, but she didn’t.

‘I told Anne about your research,’ Emma said. ‘She looked shocked and worried to begin with, then seemed to change her mind. She said if you found something to tell her and she’d discuss it with us.’