‘But didn’t you say you’re going next week too?’

Teresa sighed. ‘Well, you know she wants as much “baby time” as possible.’ She looked down for a moment, studying the paving stones of her driveway, before meeting Anna’s gaze again. ‘I don’t think this has been engineered, Anna, honestly I don’t.’

Anna nodded and smiled, but her jaw felt tight and she knew the warmth hadn’t reached her eyes. She turned and walked towards the street where her car was parked.

WHEN BRODY STARED at the notebook on his desk early on Sunday morning, everything inside him said, Run! He wanted to shoot out the back door of his cottage, across the yard and into the safety of his workshop. He wanted to feel a chisel in his hand, lose himself in the mindless shaping of wood.

But Brody didn’t run. Instead, he pulled out his desk chair and sat down. He sat there for a minute or so and then, when he was ready, he opened the notebook lying on the desk, picked up his fountain pen and pressed the nib against the page.

Write, he told himself. Write something. Write anything!

The nib began to move. A word began to form.

Pain.

Brody wasn’t sure where it had come from, but it had come. Not a word he wanted to read, particularly. Not a word he really wanted to think about. But it was a word, so both triumph and discomfort swirled within him. He made the pen move again.

Grief… Guilt… RAGE.

Brody stared at what he’d just written. He did feel angry, he realized, but he didn’t know who with. He tried again.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…

The heart-thumping feeling became even more dramatic. Was he getting enough oxygen? He wasn’t sure he was getting enough oxygen. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Come on,’ he said out loud. ‘Enough of this. Write a bloody sentence!’

He began to write again. Or, at least, that was what he’d intended to do, but it seemed his subconscious had other plans. His pen began to sketch a man. He was standing alone, and as Brody let his imagination take over, the landscape around him began to form. There were mountains behind him, stark and jagged, and at his feet was the edge of a gaping chasm. The man was looking into the gash in the earth, Brody realized. He’d been looking into it for so long he’d forgotten he could do anything else.

The anger in Brody’s chest began to swell and his pen moved faster and faster, filling in the outlines, bringing shadows and darkness to the scene. He kept going until the fire inside him dwindled, and when he looked again, he discovered the man had gone.

Logic told him that he was still there on the page, that he’d just covered the figure in dark ink during his shading frenzy, but in his mind he knew differently. He knew exactly where the man was.