By the time we’ve pulled into the driveway of our thirties semi, it’s 7pm. Just a few hours left of this horrific weekend before everything goes back to normal. It’ll be like yesterday never happened. Simon at the gym, me spending my days shooting happy families, my heart bursting with envy at their irrepressible matching grins and myriad nicknames for one another.

Simon’s sulk has set in and he doesn’t even acknowledge me as he opens the passenger door and marches up to our house. He lets himself in, makes a huge fuss of the cat and then disappears into the kitchen. I linger on the step outside, checking my phone for the thousandth time today. Nothing. Then, I follow Simon into the house, hanging back in the hallway as he opens the fridge and pulls out another can of beer. I know he’s making a point, doing it to annoy me.

I shouldn’t have lost my temper. It’s not his fault, after all.

“Simon …” I say. “I …”

“Doesn’t matter,” he replies, cracking the ring pull. “Maybe you should go for a lie down.”

“What do you want for dinner?” I soften my voice, consider walking towards him and giving him a hug. No, that’d be too weird. Bollocks. I always pick a fight on the wrong day.

“Whatever. I’m not really hungry,” he replies.

He pushes past me and heads for the living room. Seconds later I hear a click as the television springs to life. Shit shit shit, it’s all going wrong.

I walk back through the hall and stand in the doorway of the living room.

“Antiques Roadshow, huh?” I say, smiling. “Didn’t realise that was your cup of tea.”

His lips twitch but he doesn’t look at me. His eyes are fixed to the screen.

“Simon,” I say. “I’m sorry. Please. You know today …”

He gives a great sigh.

“Let’s just wait for the appointment, Von. I’m not in the mood.”

I feel a rush of sympathy for him, for his hurt male pride. It’s all he ever wanted; a family. He dotes on his nephew, volunteers to babysit him at every available opportunity. When the consultant handed us his results, giving us the verdict with a sympathetic shrug, I saw the way Simon swallowed and looked away. Then later, at home, I watched through the door of the living room as he ripped the sheet of paper into tiny pieces.

“It can’t hurt, can it?” My voice sounds whiny and needling, like a child. For a second I am taken out of myself and I’m looking down at the scene, hearing a forty-year-old woman beg her much younger husband to have sex with her.

He doesn’t look up.

He wants this just as much as me. I just need to take the pressure off.

I take a few steps back into the hallway and look in the mirror, plumping up my brown lob with my hands. I don’t look forty. But there’s a bittersweet reason I don’t—it’s because I haven’t had children.