It was a brilliantly sunny but desperately cold day when she died.

Clara and I hadn’t spoken to each other since I’d made lunch the day before. She looked pale and tired and had withdrawn herself completely from me as well as from the plan we’d made to try to make more of an effort with our marriage before the baby arrived.

We were running out of time.

The birth was imminent and the plan to talk, laugh and share experiences that would bond us aside from the tiny life growing inside of her had completely fallen apart.

We went to bed separately most nights. I was lying on my back, my arms stretched above my head as far away from her as possible when she whispered into the darkness, ‘I want a divorce,’ and interrupted the thoughts of our inevitable defeat by adding that she hadn't felt the baby move for the last four hours.

She pulled back the covers and turned on the light, which blasted me in the face with its unexpected sharpness in contrast to the dark. She started to get dressed calmly. Still silent and so matter of fact, she gathered the hospital bag she’d prepared weeks before. She had shut me out as she became distracted and deadened by fear.

We drove in silence, her head turned towards the window as she leant her face against the glass. I fought the conflicting pain of telling myself it would all be fine, alongside preparing myself to let go. I carried the guilt of letting myself consider what this could mean for Clara, for me and for us. I tried to push down the intensity of the feelings and sorrowful premonitions and move aside the sobs hiding at the back of my throat.

I saw the glare of the sun above the clouds and tried to convince myself that everything was going to work out fine. I would grow to love Clara once we’d welcomed our baby into the world. We would hold each other and cry when we heard their first sounds and the baby would immediately bind us, fix us, and create a foundation of newfound love and contentment. I held on to the steering wheel tightly and told myself to believe it, to let it guide me through this new chapter of our lives. But the ultrasound told me what I already knew.

Our baby’s heart had stopped beating.

A girl, a beautiful girl, who hadn’t quite come into our lives but was now the biggest part of it.

I knew this baby girl would never leave my side until my last breath mimicked hers.

We named her Lily Dawson.

She was so tiny.

Clara clung on to her like her only hope in the world had been taken away from her so cruelly.

She was perfect. Everything about her was perfect.

I did everything I imagined I would do when I became a father for the first time. I checked her toes and her fingers. Perfect. I checked her ears. Perfect. Her nose was like mine, her hair was light blonde, so much of it. Perfect. I struggled to take in how this amazingly perfect image of us could be gone before she was even ours to keep.

Clara died that day too.

The girl I had known for years, who was bright and raucous, was now lost and broken, crouching on the floor, choking on her sobs and pushing at the midwives as they tried to comfort her.

We sat together, the three of us taking in our sadness and releasing our loss.

She could claw, punch and scream at me for as long as she needed to. It was all I could do, all I could provide—a channel for her grief so immense that it had already changed her irrevocably.

‘She’s gone, Clara. Please, you have to let her go.’

‘They have to do something. Tell them. Please,’ she repeated this mournfully until long after had only been just the two of us sitting on the hospital bed. She hugged her shoulders and rested her chin on her chest as she slowly rocked her body. I kissed her head and was met with a pained stare. I stroked her cheek with my thumb just like I had done to Lily hoping that part of her strength and love would be passed on to her forever.

I held Clara close and whispered into her hair that Lily was so beautifully perfect and would always be ours. I thanked her for bringing her into my life even though it was far too short.

I wanted to believe we would recover from this, but we were lying on fractured foundations long before Lily died. Something changed in me as I held her, stroked her hair and kissed her cheek. I’d promised Lily’s tiny fingernails and long eyelashes that I would care for her broken mother silently sobbing in my arms.

I promised to try.

So did Clara.

But we could never try hard enough.