I stood to move towards her but the floor shifted beneath my feet. The last thing I could remember before the blackness swallowed me was trying to make a deal with God to keep my baby safe. Trading my life for my child’s. Trading Adam’s life.

The second I had thought that, I hated myself and I tried to take it back. I wanted them both. I needed them both.

Adam, don’t die.

He was the last thing I saw as my vision tunnelled.

My last conscious thought.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Anna

Curtains swished around the bed next to mine. It was visiting time on the ward and, as if they believed the flimsy piece of pale green fabric could drown out their voices, the family chattered loudly in a language I couldn’t understand. Even if they were speaking in English, I didn’t think I’d be able to process what they were saying. My mind was full of one thing.

I had lost our baby.

I had cried, begged, offered the doctor money to save the life that had been ebbing away, but it was too late. After examination, I had been given the option to wait and see if all the pregnancy tissue – and hearing my baby referred to as this brought a fresh bout of tears – expelled naturally, which could take weeks, or to take medicine to speed the process up to a few hours. Reluctantly, I had chosen the latter. The sooner the ‘process’, as the doctor called it, was over, the sooner I could recover my strength and I needed to be strong for Adam. But I hadn’t been able to force the tablet down. I had sobbed, retched, shook my head over and over, but eventually the tablet had dissolved under my tongue and today… today I felt anything but strong.

I was waiting for the nurse to bring me some lunch. If I ate, she had promised me that the doctor would discharge me. That I could go straight to see Adam. She had checked on him twice for me, relaying that his sedation had been withdrawn. He was breathing on his own, which I thought must be a good sign, so why wasn’t he waking up?

I rolled onto my side, turning away from the clock that taunted me with its slow, slow hands. On the other side of the window was a blue cloudless sky. Holidaymakers would be counting their blessings, another day on the beach. It was hard to believe that was Adam and I just forty-eight hours ago.

A breeze caressed my face but nothing could cool my eyes, hot and swollen from crying. Somehow, I slept.

‘Anna.’

Hearing my name, I scrambled to sit up, my heart thudding in my chest. Immediately thinking the worst. ‘Is Adam—’

‘No change. I’ve brought your lunch.’