As if the baby they’d made together was an abomination… a monster. She’d spread her two hands over her belly as if to protect it and glared at him. ‘I’m having this baby, Flynn. Our child… my child.’

He’d walked out then and she didn’t see him for a few weeks. But he couldn’t stay away, not completely, and although he didn’t move back in with her, they stayed friends… of a sort… after all, she was carrying his child.

Jodie decided to follow her original plan and make a fresh start. She sold the Gravesend house and rented a smaller one on the outskirts of Glasgow while she looked around for somewhere to buy. Flynn said nothing about her going but he helped her pack and went with her to the train station for her long journey.

‘Come visit,’ she said to him as he lifted her luggage onto the racks.

He looked at her, tears in his eyes and shook his head. ‘I can’t.’ Then he was gone.

But when she looked out the window, he was there, staring at her. And when the train pulled out, she waved until he was out of sight.

Three weeks later, she was walking towards her Glasgow home and saw him standing on the doorstep, surrounded by several holdalls. And when she saw his handsome face and the confusion in his eyes, she knew suddenly that there was only one thing to do to make everything all right.

The baby was born on time and without fuss. Flynn was with her at the birth, his brown eyes filling with wonder. ‘He’s perfect,’ he said, resting his finger against the child’s cheek.

Absolutely perfect. Jodie adored the baby, would have held him all day every day had she had the choice. Choices. She’d looked at the beautiful face of her son, then to the handsome face of his father and knew she was right. She had to reset their lives.

So, for the second time in her life, she gave away her child.

A month later, when she bought a house nearer to Edinburgh, she changed her surname by deed poll to Douglas, asked Flynn to move in with her with the baby, and introduced them to her neighbours as her son Flynn, and his son, Ben whose mother had, sadly, passed away. Apart from the occasional comment about Jodie looking so young to be a grandmother, nobody raised an eyebrow.

Not many months later, Flynn said he was moving out and Jodie knew why before he explained. She’d known it would come. Flynn was too handsome and charming to be on his own for long but it didn’t stop her heart breaking while she wished him every happiness.

It was Ben who broke into her memories. ‘Ganny,’ he said, leaning towards Jodie. ‘Can I have some of your fluff?’