He nodded. I felt my eyes fill with tears. ‘Yes, of course you’ll bloody do!’

At that precise moment, I think I was happier than I had ever been in my entire life. I still found it hard to believe that someone as intelligent and handsome and caring as Jack could want me – me – to share his life. To raise his child.

Six weeks later, we had tied the knot in a registry office – not because we felt we ought to, but because the time felt, well, right. And as neither of us were religious, a church ceremony seemed hypocritical. We agreed that we wanted it to be low-key, and rather than inviting family and friends for a big ‘do’, pulled in a couple of bemused witnesses from the street. We celebrated afterwards with a meal at the Italian restaurant where we’d had our first proper date. I’d never fantasised about a big white wedding, and it seemed more meaningful somehow that it was just us. I was deliriously happy.

*

The news of my pregnancy had made us both re-evaluate our priorities, and probably owing to a surge in hormones I became suddenly more anxious and obsessive about everything: crime, pollution, the general environment into which we would be bringing our precious child. I had been born and raised in Birmingham, although if the truth be told I had long dreamed of relocating to somewhere quieter and where the pace of life seemed less manic. And of escaping my past. I would have gone anywhere in the world with Jack if he’d asked me to and this was the perfect opportunity to do just that. New house, new baby; isn’t that how the saying goes?

The chance of a more senior role for Jack in a well-established surgery in the Warwickshire countryside was so perfectly timed, it almost felt predestined. Everything seemed to have fallen into place. Jack was raised on a farm and had always had a hankering to return to a more rural way of life, plus neither of us were keen on the idea of raising a child in the city. And on a practical level, our second-floor flat was decidedly poky, plus there was no lift. The thought of dragging a buggy and baby up and down those stairs filled me with dread. I was working freelance from home, making enough money to keep me ticking over writing articles for various magazines, and so location for me wasn’t an issue. We began to scour the local papers and the internet for an ideal area from which Jack could commute.