Two days previously, on Saturday morning, Laura had woken to Bobby crying. A piercing yell of an alarm call that shot through Laura’s sore head like a blade. She’d grabbed a cold flannel on her way to her son’s room and pressed it against her throbbing temple, ignoring the urge to stop and be sick, telling herself that really was the last time she would ever drink so much, as wine regurgitated in her mouth.

Pulling her son out of his cot, Laura pressed his warm body against her chest, taking him to the rocking chair in the corner of his room, where she sat down and placed him on her lap, smiling through tears that had sprung from nowhere as he lifted chubby fingers and pressed them against her mouth. ‘Hello, my gorgeous boy,’ she said. ‘I love you so much. Do you know that? I love you more than anything in the entire world.’

It was the truth. The love she felt for Bobby had expanded her heart in ways she could never have imagined possible before giving birth to him. He was her everything. So why was she so intent on wanting more? Why did it feel like she didn’t have enough?

These thoughts had continued to plague her over the next two days.

What did it make Laura, when she admitted that the thought of giving up everything she had worked for, her entire adult life, left her empty? That to be all those things for Bobby, she would have to say goodbye to the career she’d always loved?

It made her think that maybe she still wasn’t loving him enough.

While she sat motionless in the rocking chair, with the fear that any slight movement would make her feel worse, Nate poked his head round Bobby’s bedroom door and asked if she wanted a coffee.

‘No. I’m fine, thanks,’ she told him. The thought of coffee made her want to retch and she knew that, to get through the day, she would need to pretend. Keep pretending she was coping, when she was anything but.

Laura peered at Nate over the top of Bobby’s head. He rubbed one hand through his ruffled hair, as he scratched his leg with the other. His mouth was set rigid, and his eyes didn’t mask the anger he must feel towards her.

She’d wanted to cry at him that she knew he was right. Nothing was working as it was supposed to. She had screwed up. She was still continuing to do so, and maybe she needed to accept that she couldn’t have it all – or at least she couldn’t without falling apart. Without eventually losing something. Or everything.