‘I promise I’ll make this right,’ he tells her, holding her close. ‘I’ll build your house, Aurelia. I promise.’

‘OK,’ she says, nodding and crying. ‘OK.’

In the office at home Tom searches online for a therapist in Norway. He finds a number and pulls out his mobile phone to call them, but Aurelia won’t have it.

‘Let me contact my midwife,’ she says. ‘She asked me to get in touch if anything … you know.’

‘… it’s important we get you seen to, Aurelia …’

She gives him a look of I promise. He relents. ‘OK.’

He watches as she sits down in front of the computer and begins to type an email to her midwife. Hi Clare, How are you? How to put this situation into words? Hey, I had suicidal thoughts while watching my kid play on the swings in a park yesterday, can I get therapy please?

It’s a hard thing to put into an email, she thinks, covering her eyes with her hands. She hates asking for help. Always has. She can give help no problem, but asking for it? For her it’s the hardest thing on earth. Tom rubs her back, utterly relieved and heartbroken all at once.

‘You can do this. We can put you on the next plane home.’

She nods.

Hi Clare! Could we talk sometime? I’m feeling a bit low lately … I remember you said to get in touch if I was struggling and I’d like to find out if I can get some kind of support.

Thanks

Aurelia Faraday

Satisfied, she hits ‘send’.

She rises from the leather office chair, heads to the kitchen and puts the kettle on. While it’s boiling she heads upstairs, pulls out the drawer of her bedside table, and retrieves her red diary, the one in which she writes down her dreams. Once she’s made a cup of tea she sits back at the desk, watching the cursor blink on her screen, and reads through her dream diary.

I was pregnant again but with triplets and there was a doctor standing over me about to perform a C-section.

Tom tried to kill Coco.

Tom’s dad was trying to kill me. He chased me through the house and then he was going to kill Gaia and Coco so I ran out of Granhus towards the cliff and he pushed me off and I fell into the fjord.

Tom and I discussed divorce and I pleaded with him not to leave and then he offered to make me pancakes and George Clooney was there fixing the radiator???