‘Almost?’

‘Well, the physical recovery is surprisingly quick, all things considered. It’s the mental and emotional aspects that are hardest to conquer. He’s not always . . . rational.’

‘Oh.’

‘Which makes negotiating with him tricky.’

Bell watched her. ‘What do you have to negotiate?’

‘Our divorce, for one thing.’

‘He must have known it was coming, surely?’

‘No. He didn’t know about Max and the girls.’

‘Oh.’ Bell bit her lip, thinking back. It had been, what, six months months since he’d woken up? Six months that Hanna had kept her new family a secret?

‘Yes. I only told him last week. I kept putting it off, you see; I could never find the words to tell him.’

Bell blinked. Much the same as she hadn’t been able to find the words to tell Linus, either. ‘How did he take it?’

‘Terribly.’ Hanna scrunched her eyes tightly at the memory. ‘That was what Thursday was about. I had had a few glasses of wine here, and I suddenly screwed up the courage to go and see him and just do it.’

‘But it didn’t go to plan?’

She shook her head. ‘I think he could tell I’d had a few drinks to steady my nerves; he offered me some more, and I accepted – I wanted it to be a civilized discussion, I thought we could deal with it as friends. We ended up wandering down memory lane, reminiscing about the good times – about Linus as a baby, our honeymoon, how we met. But then . . . then he kissed me.’

‘Oh!’

‘Yes.’

Bell stared back at her, hearing what she wasn’t saying. ‘And you kissed him back?’

‘At first, yes.’ Hanna nodded, biting her lip. ‘It’s just all so difficult and confusing.’

Bell felt a bolt of concern for Max. ‘. . . Well, it’s understandable,’ she managed. ‘You were married to him, there’s bound to be lots of deep emotions between you both still. And as you said, you don’t have to be enemies just because you’re not together any more.’

‘That was what I hoped. But when I stopped . . . it,’ Hanna stammered. ‘And I blurted out the truth about Max . . . I think he was so shocked and hurt; I think he felt humiliated.’ She sighed, pressing a hand to her forehead. ‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. He’s a good man who had a bad thing happen to him, and then I had to sit there and explain to him what he’s really woken up to – that the life he left behind no longer exists. The wife he left no longer exists.’

‘His shock must have been immense.’

‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look in his eyes.’ Hanna splayed her hands questioningly. ‘I tried telling him that I had had to make the best decisions as things were presented to me at the time. The doctors had said there was almost no hope that he would recover, so, for Linus’s sake, I had to move on with our lives. But he just won’t accept that I’m with Max now, that we have the girls. He refuses to even hear their names.’