‘Then maybe you could explain it to me,’ April said, and for the first time she felt like she was talking to someone who might actually know why she felt the way she did. ‘I’m happy for Sara, and it’s not like Jason and I ever lost a child or suffered a miscarriage. We weren’t even trying for a baby.’

‘And now you’ll never get the chance,’ Tara replied. ‘While everyone else is working out their future paths, the ground in front of you has fallen away and you’re balancing on the edge of a precipice.’

‘I am,’ April said with a nod that threatened to spill the tears welling in her eyes. ‘I woke up one morning and everything I thought I had was gone. Jason died in his sleep. A subarachnoid haemorrhage. There was no warning. Nothing.’

April could remember how she had stretched out her arms when she awoke that morning. Her hand had touched something cold and even the memory made her recoil. She had no idea how long she had been lying next to Jason like that, but it would have been hours and there was no doubting he was dead. Her first reaction had been to scramble backwards off the bed, and she had landed hard on the floor. Unable, or unwilling to process what was happening, she had started to scream. Luckily they lived in a flat, and one of her neighbours had heard her.

Staring into the distance, April was back on her bedroom floor. A part of her had never left.

‘It will get easier,’ Tara assured her. ‘The grief might stay with you for ever but the shock each time you remember your loss will become less intense, or else you’ll simply get used to that stabbing pain in the centre of your heart.’

‘It really is a physical pain, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘How did you get through it?’

‘With a lot of help from a close network of family and friends. My daughter Molly was only two at the time, and Mike and I ran a business together, so there was no choice but to keep going.’

‘Gosh, that must have been hard. I don’t know how I’d cope if I had a baby to look after as well,’ April admitted, which only confused her emotions about the dreaded baby shower.

‘You seem to have a good group of friends around you too,’ Tara told her.

‘They must be sick and tired of walking around on eggshells. I don’t know how I feel from one minute to the next, and if I can’t predict how I’ll react, how can they? I know I’m being irrational half the time.’

‘Talking helps.’