‘Yes.’ His voice was softer now. ‘You won’t dislodge anything if you’re careful. Please try and rest though. It’s understandable that you want to be here but you have to look after yourself. Think about your unborn child.’

And just like that, he tore me in two.

‘I’ll speak to you again tomorrow.’ He hesitated at the door. ‘Mrs Curtis, I hate to ask but if you could give the details of your travel insurance to reception, someone can get onto them first thing. It sounds clinical, I know, but it is necessary.’

‘Yes, I will,’ I said. I didn’t have the policy but I remembered Adam saying he was booking it through the travel agent.

Somebody else to ring.

Something else to do, when all I wanted to do was cry.

Outside, a fist of darkness snatched the last of the daylight away. Adam’s room was gloomy, lit only by the light from the corridor spilling through the window, but I preferred it this way. After Dr Acevedo left, I’d cautiously approached Adam’s bed, almost scared of this man I had been married to for the past five years. He was vulnerable in a way I hadn’t seen him before. I had sat, watching intently, for a flicker of eyelids, for the movement of a finger, a toe, however tiny. My head had throbbed with shock and sadness and fear.

‘Wake up. Adam, please wake up.’ My whispers had been urgent, the way they sometimes were in the middle of the night when I had thought I’d heard something. Adam would instantly spring awake and pad downstairs barefoot, in his boxers. There was never anybody there and Adam, in our first few years together, had never complained about being woken. In more recent times, he had huffed and sighed his way back to bed and I’d tetchily asked if he’d rather stay asleep and be murdered. He had dramatically rolled over, pulling the covers to his chin, telling me I was being ridiculous.

‘Adam,’ I whispered again. I wouldn’t have cared if he’d called me all the names under the sun if I’d managed to rouse him. I didn’t care about any of the small things anymore, because the big thing, the most important thing, was that he woke up so we could go home. ‘Wake up,’ I whispered again, ignoring the pitiful expression on the nurse’s face who remained in the corner of the room, like a statue.

But he hadn’t.