He was lucky, they said, but it didn’t feel like that. Black shadows lingered not just around the periphery of his vision, but inside him too – a hole that threatened to grow and swallow him whole. Something was missing. He was alive, he was awake, and yet . . .

No one was speaking. After all the fuss and the shouts and the lights and the beeps and the faces, now everything was quiet and still. He didn’t like it. Silence held threat for him – it was the land of the sleeping, the unconscious, the dead.

He wasn’t dead – was he?

But then something came to his ear – a sweep, like the hiss of a wave – and to his eyes, a light. It was a light that grew brighter as it drew nearer, something pale and golden filling his blurry field of view. Two eyes, pale as Arctic ice, linked with his, reconnecting him to the world and blotting out the shadows. Filling him up.

No, he wasn’t dead. This was life. She was life. She was his life.

His wife.

They were in the Stadstradgarden, watching the skateboarders and chasing pigeons, when the call came an hour and ten minutes later. Hanna’s voice was like porcelain: thin, fragile, but with light shining through. ‘Come now.’

She texted the address and Bell booked an Uber, running with Linus through the park together in a race, back to the street, to catch him in time. Bell pipped him to the post, just. ‘Where are we going?’ Linus panted, worn out but excited as they slid onto the back seat.

Bell hesitated, a twist of anxiety in her gut. It wasn’t her place to tell this child the full truth that was awaiting him. ‘We’re meeting up with Mamma now. There’s something she wants to show you.’

‘You’re fast,’ he sighed, dropping his head back on the seat as the driver took them across town. ‘Considering.’

‘Considering what?’ Bell asked in mock outrage. ‘That I’m a girl?’

‘That you’re a grown-up. Most grown-ups can’t race.’

‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ she said, dropping her head back against the seat too. ‘I’m not really a grown-up.’

He frowned. ‘But you’re old.’

‘I’m twenty-six!’ she laughed, tickling him by squeezing his thigh.

‘That’s old.’

‘Yeah, fair enough. I’ve still got stride length on you, though. See?’ She extended her leg and pressed it against his. ‘A good six inches, I reckon. You’ll be overtaking me soon, and then it’ll be game over.’

‘Do you think I’ll be taller than you?’

‘I know it. You’ll take after your parents and they’re both t–tall, aren’t they?’ She stumbled, realizing she had no idea how tall his biological father was. And he had no idea Max wasn’t that man.

It was still such an unbelievable shock, even to her. She put her hand on his head and ruffled his hair. The poor child. He had no idea what they were driving towards.