Chris pulled the suitcase over towards him and rifled through the contents. What the fuck? He was sweating now. ‘Tina, what the hell is going on? How long have these been here? Why would you be buying stuff when you don’t have a baby?’

Tina yanked the case away from him. ‘Get your hands off them. I will have a baby soon, you’ll see. I’m not a headcase, Chris, so don’t look at me like I’m losing the plot or something.’

‘Tina, please sit down. We need to talk about this. This is serious. You’re buying baby clothes when we don’t even have a baby. This is not right, you need help. First thing tomorrow, I’m calling the doctor’s. You need to tell them about these.’ He held a pair of tiny knitted bootees in his hand.

Tina let out a shriek of anguish and fell to her knees. She broke down, smashing her fist against the floor, screaming. ‘All I want is a fucking baby. I cry every night, Chris, my heart is broken into a million pieces and do you even know how hard it is for me to get up every morning and face another day, because let me tell you, it’s hard, so bleeding hard. It’s killing me. I’ve been drinking again too. Every day, necking the brandy, see you didn’t even know about that either, did you? That shows how much notice you take of me, doesn’t it?’

Chris crossed the room and took her in his arms. ‘Tina, Tina, shhh. We’ll look into adoption if that’s what you want. I will do anything to make you happy. But this,’ he pointed at the suitcase, ‘it has to stop. We can get through this together, we can work it out but only if you let me in. We can get you help with the drinking too. First we get you well again, then we’ll talk about kids.’

Tina was sobbing her heart out, wet strands of hair stuck to the side of her face. It felt like forever until she was able to stop long enough to speak. She looked up at her husband. ‘I can get us a baby, Chris. I really can.’

He wiped her tears away with the side of his hand and kissed the end of her nose. ‘We’ll sort it, together we will sort it.’

Tina reached for his hands and squeezed them before she brought them to her mouth and kissed them. ‘I mean it, Chris. I can get us a baby. There are other ways than the usual ones. But did you really mean what you said? Do you really love me? Do you want to raise a child with me? Because so help me God, if you’re just stringing me along, I’m out of your life for good.’