Unease squirmed in my belly as I scanned the contents. Our savings account book was missing. A chill swept through me. Adam must have taken it, but why?

He’s leaving you.

The thought popped into my head.

I reached for my phone and called him. His photo smiled up at me from my screen. There would be an innocent explanation. Adam wouldn’t use the money we had been saving for our family.

He wouldn’t just take it.

My palm was clammy by the time his answer service kicked in.

He had rejected my call.

By lunchtime Adam still wasn’t home. I had rung him incessantly. I was driving myself crazy with theories because the fact was too painful to face. Adam had taken our savings book without discussing it with me.

I couldn’t call Mum. She had taken Nan on a coach trip to the market Nan liked because it sold every imaginable colour of wool. I hadn’t gone with them because I had been feeling so exhausted, but now I wished I had. I was going frantic. After a moment of hesitation, I called Nell.

‘Hey Anna! I’ve been meaning to phone you.’ She sounded pleased to hear from me.

‘Have you got time to talk?’

‘Yep. I’ll just… Oh God, Emily, don’t draw on the sofa! Alfie, stop your sister. No, don’t join in. Chris?’ she yelled. ‘Sorry, can I call you back in a sec, Anna?’

‘Of course.’

But she didn’t.

By mid-afternoon I was climbing the walls. My stomach was cramping and I realized I hadn’t got enough tampons. I also hadn’t carried out a pregnancy test. Each month I played that lonely game of maybe-this-time. Every four weeks I vowed that I wouldn’t do it again, but I couldn’t help carrying out a test on the day my period was due. Despite the endometriosis, my cycle had remained pretty regular and it had become a ritual I was scared to break, not that it had brought me any luck but because, if I didn’t carry it out, it would feel like I was giving up hope and hope was all I had.

I used to go to the small chemist at the end of the street. For the first few times the assistant had grinned conspiratorially at me while I had made my purchase. Months stretched into a year and she would no longer meet my eye as she served me. Instead of a smile, she had worn an embarrassed flush around her neck. I had learned never to visit the same shop twice in a row.

‘Just these two?’ The gum-chewing girl raised her pierced eyebrows at my contradictory duo of Tampax and a ClearBlue kit.