There was more. The phone rang, and sometimes no one was on the other end, a dropped connection along the line. I went to bed early, exhausted, but woke up in the night, jittery with nerves. I’d hear a noise outside and run to the window, but nothing was ever there. Animals, most likely, something I wasn’t used to after the city. I kept forgetting things too. I would set items down – my phone or a hairbrush or the glasses I was too vain to wear out of the house – and go back to where I was sure I’d left them, but they’d be somewhere else entirely. In my study, though I didn’t remember being in there that day, or inside the fridge even. I’d told Nick about it, troubled, and he put it down to ‘baby brain’.

‘Nothing to worry about. Just shows the little mite is active!’ He put his hand on my stomach, right up under my jumper and on my bare skin, and I pulled away. Maybe he was right. Certainly my brain had been a turbulent place since I lost you.

However, the Monday after our tense dinner party, I woke up to find Nick standing over me. Cold grey light poured in from the window, and I blinked. ‘What time is it?’

‘Seven.’

‘Oh.’ A deep exhaustion pulled me back into the warm duvet. ‘I should rest, I think. It’s so cold out.’

‘Not today.’ He stroked my head in a clinical, tender way. Like a nurse with a child. ‘We’ve got an appointment.’

‘What? Where?’ But he was already leaving the room, turning the shower on for me. He wouldn’t tell me where we were going as I ate bland porridge (no sugar allowed), or as I was marched to the car, my feet crunching on the frosty grass. I was grouchy. ‘Nick, what the hell is this? Tell me where we’re going.’ Was there an antenatal appointment I’d forgotten?

He sighed, staring at the road ahead. ‘I didn’t think you’d go if I told you. It’s nothing to worry about. They’re just going to talk to you.’

A spike of alarm. ‘Who?’

‘The doctor.’

‘What?’ I gaped at the side of his head. ‘You made me a doctor’s appointment? Can you even do that for me?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s all online now. Seriously, don’t you think you should see them? All this talk of music playing, the temperature, and the way you were on Saturday – sweetheart, I think you might need to talk to someone.’