I barely remembered getting home. My body carried me along. The rest of me was numb. Ella’s baby girl. Stillborn. God, how awful. The pavement, the passing traffic, swirled and blurred as I stumbled on.

I couldn’t make sense of it. Was it true then, after all? Was there really some medical problem, a reason she couldn’t have children? My palms sweated.

And I believed Stella. There was so reason for her to lie to me. Stillborn. How did she bear it?

I remembered the calmness in the baby’s face. I’d thought she was just sleeping, but it was more than that. I saw it now. It was true. She was already at peace.

I thought again of the pictures. Of the tender look on Ella’s face as she held her newborn baby, Catherine Louise. She knew, even as she looked down into that scrunched face, that she’d already lost her baby. That those tiny eyes would never open and fasten on hers. What courage it must have taken to hold back her grief, her anger and cradle her dead baby’s body with such love. I kept walking, my hand on my stomach, trying to imagine it, oblivious to the world around me.

My thoughts were jumbled, confused. I thought of the strangeness in her eyes when she saw me teasing you, cuddling you. It was there too when you ran to her and hugged her. A hardness I always read as loathing. Evidence of her bitter hatred of us both. Now, knowing what she’d been through, what she’d lost, it seemed something else. Something far worse. Pain.

At home, I crawled into the crumpled, unmade bed and pulled the covers over my head, trying not to feel, trying only to hide. I shook for some time, my eyes screwed closed. Then a fresh blow hit me. I sat bolt upright, my hands to my cheeks.

What about the medical reports? The seizures? How could both things be true? I drew up my knees, wrapped my arms round them and hugged them to me. Had Matt’s brother, Geoff, made a mistake, looked up details of the wrong case?

I stared at the wall, struggling to figure it out. Was there more than one Ella Hicks? It wasn’t such an unusual name. I hesitated, forcing my brain to work. But both with babies called Catherine, born around the same time and both dying? I shook my head. It didn’t add up. Someone was lying and I didn’t think it was Stella.

I moaned, lay back on the bed and curled into a ball. I saw it all again. The club. Ella, there in front of me. Her face when I’d taunted her about Catherine. My body flushed hot with shame. I didn’t know, how could I? What had she thought of me? She was very upset when she came home, Richard had said. His face was stern. I didn’t have you down as cruel. I put my hands to my face, trying to scrape away the memory, too ashamed even to cry.

Later, when Richard dropped you home again, I couldn’t look him in the face.

I waited until he left, then lifted you into my arms and pressed you against my chest, holding you tight even as you struggled, my wet face pressed into your hair. My own sweet girl, the day you were born was the most miraculous, the most wonderful day of my life. The thought of anyone losing their baby, just as their child’s life was meant to begin, made me tremble and I clung to you as if you were the only solid creature in this sad, swirling world.

Before you went up to bed that evening, we crayoned together at the kitchen table. You were happy and full of stories about the weekend. You told me about the little boy you’d met in the park. You’d grabbed his hand when he tried to run through the open gate and escape onto the road.

‘He was so naughty, Mummy,’ you said. ‘I held his hand very tightly like this because he wanted to run away. What a silly banana.’

You shook your head, fondly despairing of a boy who sounded only about two. You sounded so adult that I had to look up to reassure myself that you were still only three years old, crayoning with passion, your hair spilling forward down your cheek. Your words sounded at times like a window on your future, as if time could fold and past and future merge right here in the kitchen and show me your much older self.

I crayoned slowly alongside you, struggling to concentrate. My chest was tight. I was weighed down by thoughts of Ella and baby Catherine and the sadness of what happened to them. Life seemed suddenly so fragile, so unpredictable, that I couldn’t quite believe you had survived and were here with me now, and couldn’t bear to think how barren my life would be without you.

All I wanted, as I made my careful strokes within the lines and let your chatter fill the silence, was to fold my arms round you and hold you close. I realised how angry I’d been. Angry with Richard for abandoning us and angry with Ella for stealing him away and frightened too that she wanted to take you next and then maybe even Matt. The people I loved most.

Now the anger fell away and I was left limp and exhausted and had to bite my lip to stop myself breaking down and sobbing in front of you. Ella had suffered, suffered much more than I had, suffered grief I couldn’t imagine.