He had tried to move, first. He’d offered her things. Do you want some tea? Shall I put on some music? She’d scowled at him with a cross between disbelief and hatred. He’d left the room, sat at his computer and started asking it questions, though he’d already tried that with the doctors. They didn’t know, they said. Perhaps there was a problem with the placenta. But they hadn’t detected anything. So they couldn’t be sure. They didn’t know. It happens sometimes. They were sorry.

As he read page after page on the causes of stillbirth, he listened for any sound of Eva moving around. There was none. He researched for the first time in depth what the placenta actually did, how the umbilical cord worked, the risks of haemorrhage and pre-eclampsia, the many types of chromosome alterations. The statistics terrified him. Why had he not read this before? Studies suggest that 60% of stillbirths are unexplained, that 1 in 200 babies are stillborn when using natural birth – so many? So many? How could he have let this happen? He wasn’t aware of crying, except that his vision was blurred as he sped through more websites. Those offering help or support were quickly ignored, it was the science he wanted. The numbers. The answers.

Darkness crept in around him, but he didn’t turn on the lights. The computer screen lit the words he read, and that was enough. He was there long into the night and for the hours that he read he was able to keep his own pain away from the conscious part of his mind. He thought it was making him feel better.

But sometime after midnight, he became hungry. It was the sound that got him. He heard his stomach make a loud grumble, and from a distance he realised what the sound was. He didn’t want to eat but his body was hungry. It made him feel unworthy, as he crept to the kitchen. It made him feel ashamed. He ate three slices of toast and the remaining Cheddar cheese in the fridge. Gulped down a pint of fruit juice. Walked quietly – he thought – towards the living room where he assumed Eva would be sleeping. But she wasn’t sleeping. She was still sitting there, staring out of the window that was now a black, empty square, with nothing but the lopsided reflection of the side lamp interrupting its darkness.

He sat beside her. Took her hand.

‘How, erm …’ He cleared his throat. Closed his eyes for a moment, breathed out, then in. Tried again. ‘How are you feeling?’