They’d always regretted not giving her a middle name. As if she was even more short-changed by that somehow. Had they given themselves more time to think, to breathe, they’d have called her Georgia May after Gareth’s grandmother. But it was all so rushed and they were so numb.

Gareth had gone alone to register both the birth and death of his daughter. Judith had wanted to come with him, but his heart was being wrenched apart and he couldn’t bear her to feel the same pain.

She needed the little strength that she had for the funeral. Which was almost non-existent. Just him and Jude and Catrin and Sol and the Anglican vicar from All Saints. They didn’t want anyone else there. Patricia hadn’t even been told of the birth, let alone the death. They wanted to keep it tiny and unassuming, like the tiny, unassuming life of their little girl. And forever etched in his memory was the image of Georgia’s tiny white coffin as they placed it gently and carefully into the ground.

Six weeks later, Gareth and Judith did go to the register office together – this time for happier reasons. Firstly to record the birth of their baby boy, who, after a precarious start in life, had begun to blossom. Taking the little man himself with them for company and wrapped up warm against the January cold, they gave him two compensatory middle names – Jack Andreas Harris Metcalf. His tiny fist grasped Judith’s thumb all the while, and his big, wonder-filled eyes, bright and inquisitive, took in his surroundings as if he knew he was being formally acknowledged as a member of the human race. I wonder if he’ll remember her? Gareth often wondered. Would he hang on to some subconscious memory of the twin with whom he’d shared the safety of their mother’s womb for six whole months?

They’d also decided to do something else that day.

They’d decided to marry.

It felt right. To commit to each other even in the depths of such overbearing sorrow, to find a small glimmer of joy that might encourage them, along with the gift of their baby, to look to the future with hope. They invited Sol and Catrin to be their witnesses, with no other guests apart from little Jack. And although the ceremony was quiet and small, it endorsed the vast and boundless love they felt for each other.

Coming here now, almost two decades after Georgia’s death, no longer broke Gareth’s heart. In fact, as he’d grown older, he’d begun to look forward to his trips back to this pretty little graveyard in Coed Celyn – at least twice a year, around the time of her birthday and during magnolia fortnight. Sometimes Jack came with him. Never Jude. But it made no difference whether he was alone or not. For him it was a chance to stand quietly and contemplate. It brought him peace.

Seeing Lana at the christening had been a strange sensation. It had become second nature to him to avoid any contact whatsoever with her – quite an achievement, given that he and Judith shared the mutual close friendship of Sol and Catrin. But they’d fallen into a routine – that any meet-ups they had with the Blythes would be guaranteed to be Lana-free. And they’d all got used to living like this. To such an extent that Lana’s name was never mentioned.