I held him as he cried, and he held me back with a force so strong I could feel the pain through every bone in his fingers. He talked about his loss, the intense feelings of grief for his daughter and how insignificant life felt for him after her death.

‘I promised her, Abi. I held her and I promised I would try to make it work. I tried for her sake. I tried to fix things. We both tried.’ His body jerked with the force of his tears and he hid himself away from my eyes. I held him until he was calm, but I still felt the force of his loss as he moved away.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I repeated, knowing I couldn’t say anything that would take away his pain.

He stopped crying when he talked about Clara. I couldn’t imagine what they had been through. I listened with such despair as he talked about how the death of their daughter had impacted on Clara so greatly. It made my hurt and pain seem insignificant. I felt embarrassment and shame for the anger I’d felt towards Clara, believing that she had taken away the love of my life. That anger had now turned into nothing but sadness and compassion for the woman struggling to recover from a loss so great it consumed her.

He shared another photo of himself holding Lily. She was wrapped in a cream crocheted shawl. He said his mother had made it in the final months of her life, taking every bit of her strength because she was determined to offer a keepsake for the granddaughter she would never meet. I felt a sharp stab of sadness at the irony that she would not get to hold her granddaughter had she lived.

She died three months before Lily was born.

‘Lily was so tiny, her little hand curled in yours.’ I wiped the tear that was falling down my chin and onto my chest to focus everything I had on that beautiful photograph.

‘They couldn’t fully explain what had happened, but what would it matter if they could? It wouldn’t bring her back or make any difference,’ he sighed.

I nodded for no reason other than because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. My heart was breaking for the man who was my one true love, the man who had once held all of me, and if I was truly honest with myself, still did. He had been through the worst pain, a pain you would never fully recover from, but that in itself had placed us miles apart from the Abi and Jamie of before.

We stayed holding each other for a length of time I couldn’t even measure. He didn’t want to let me go and I didn’t want to lose the contact. My mind was rushing with questions. As he sat up against the bed, I decided that in order to move forward, I needed to know the full story.

‘Did you get married before or after Lily died?’ I asked, trying to piece it all together.

He let out a harsh sigh, like he knew he had more to say but didn’t have the words left.

‘We got married as soon as we could after we found out Clara was pregnant,’ he said, putting the photographs back inside his wallet.

‘That was quick. I’ll pretend it’s not you we’re talking about so I can gush over how romantic it is,’ I said, trying to stop the sobs.

‘Not romantic. Not in the slightest,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I had to marry her; there was no choice.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Clara’s Irish. Her family are strict Catholics; they take their religion very seriously. They’re also wealthy racehorse breeders, very well known across Ireland, so their reputation means everything to them.’

‘They wouldn’t have approved?’

‘No, Clara was adamant that the pregnancy would devastate them. Her faith isn’t as strong as her parents’ faith, but she certainly doesn’t believe in abortion and didn’t consider it as an option. To be honest, neither did I,’ he said, finally lifting my face towards him by putting his finger under my chin. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’

I sighed and closed my eyes for a second. There was too much to take in that I didn’t know what to think or how to feel. My stomach growled in what was quite possibly the worst timing in the history of emotional breakdowns, but he smiled briefly, which was good because he hadn’t smiled in such a long time.

‘My stomach’s telling me I’m hungry,’ I replied as I looked at the clock. It was now 10:30 a.m. and Jamie was due to start his seminar in half an hour.

‘Ignore the time. This is more important,’ he said quietly, releasing his hand from my face.

‘I want to know why you felt you had to marry her. It was a pretty monumental decision.’

‘So was having a baby,’ he replied hastily, looking to the floor with either shame or regret; I wasn’t sure which. ‘I rushed into it and made all the wrong decisions. She was a good friend and I felt a sense of duty to her after getting her pregnant. I know this is hard for you to hear, but once I got used to the idea, I was looking forward to being a dad. It was a good thing in my life through all the bad. I thought there was no going back with you, and Mum was getting worse. I had something else to focus on.’

I dropped my head and pulled in my stomach as I jangled those words around in my conscience.

Crushed didn’t cover it.

He immediately grabbed my hand like he knew exactly what I was thinking. ‘You know what I thought about most? I thought about my dad and having to grow up quickly without him around. He was so important to me that the thought of not being there for my child cut me up.’

‘You would have been there. You wouldn’t have walked away. You didn’t have to marry her,’ I said, wiping a fresh round of tears from the corner of my eye.

‘I know it’s hard to understand.’ He smiled as he rubbed my tear away with his thumb and continued. ‘She came to me breaking down; she didn’t want to hurt her family. She was terrified of losing them if she went ahead with the pregnancy as a single mum. It all just seemed to make sense at the time.’ He sighed quietly but it was so loud in my head I wanted to scream.

‘Last night, you said she was ill.’

‘She hasn’t been coping well. Not since…since she had a breakdown. Things have been hard. For both of us.’

‘I can’t imagine going through something so horrendous.’ I held his hand again and looked down at our joined fingers.

‘She’s taking medication, which was helping, but now she just seems so low.’

‘Do you love her?’ I whispered, afraid of the answer.

‘I love her as a friend and I care for her, but I’m not in love with her. I’m in love with you.’

I smiled through a sob and hid my trembling lip with my hand.

‘I thought about you so much. In order to try to justify it, I just told myself you would understand, you’d do the same thing, because under that Rottweiler bark, you’re a good person. You have a heart of gold. Rainbows pop out of your nostrils when you sneeze.’

We laughed at the inappropriateness of it all, but that was us. We understood the path to emotions was taken through the winding bumps of humour first.

I held my hand to my collarbone, stroking the tattoo for comfort. Elle told me I did that a lot. I’d never really thought about it until now. ‘We got a flat together in London. She moved in and I was backwards and forwards until Mum passed away.’

‘Is that why you stopped replying to my letters?’ I asked, wanting to push further until I knew everything.

‘I stopped when you told me you’d met someone else.’ My stomach dropped and shifted. ‘I got the letter, the one where you told me you’d lied about seeing someone else. I couldn’t write back because by then, I couldn’t say what I wanted to say.’

‘What did you want to say?’ I gasped.

‘That I loved you and wanted to come back, try again, work it all out. But I couldn’t say that. Clara was pregnant and I’d agreed to marry her. How could I tell you that in a letter? I was in too deep. I just repeated over and over to myself that it was the right thing to do.’

‘I went to your mum’s house, but you’d already left.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I’m glad we weren’t there.’

We.

We sat in silence holding hands and staring at the floor.

‘You need to go. Your seminar starts in twenty minutes,’ I said, pointing to the clock.

‘I need you to know that I’ve never stopped loving you. I was always thinking about you.’

I stood up and walked towards the door but he rushed in front of me, shielding it so I couldn’t leave.

‘We’re barely existing. It’s safe to say we’re the worst married couple ever. Most of the time, I feel like her older brother, looking out for her, checking she’s taken her medication, reassuring her that things will get better when I haven’t got a fucking clue if they will. I’m only her husband on paper. You have everything else. Always will.’

‘Is that supposed to reassure me?’

‘I don’t know what it’s supposed to do. I just needed you to know.’

‘Well, now I know,’ I whispered. I was losing faith in the heartfelt pleas and words of love that he wasn’t able to follow through on.

‘I can’t stay away from you. Something big has brought us back together. I can’t ignore that.’

‘Don’t. This isn't fair on me and it isn’t fair on your wife.’

‘I want you. I need you.’

He rubbed his hand across his neck in that fantastic way of his. I wanted to tell him that watching him smile and nervously playing with various parts of his face had been life changing for me, but I knew it wasn’t the time or the place. I’d keep that for another earthquake of a moment we seemed to be so good at encouraging.

I wanted more time and more moments like the night before when we were able to pretend for a while. I knew that was insane because I didn’t want to pretend. It wasn’t enough. I wanted it all.

I spoke with urgency because if I didn’t say what I wanted to say now, I didn’t know when I would get the chance again. ‘If you need me so much, you have to make the decision to leave her. Go away somewhere, tell her you’re leaving, go to a hotel room, whatever you need to do, but don’t leave her for me. Make the decision to leave yourself. I don’t want to be the other woman. I’m too good for that.’ He smiled and suddenly he seemed lighter. Relief moved across his shoulders and straightened his spine. He stood and moved towards me, but I held my arm out to keep the distance, knocking my shoulder blade on the door. ‘Don’t come to me until you’re certain and everything’s been sorted between the two of you. Make decisions, but don’t make them for me; make them for you.’

He nodded a few times but his eyes soon moved to the direction of his phone on the dressing table when it started to ring. I could see her name flash up.

‘Hello…Shit. When…How did you get her phone? Is she OK? I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

I pressed myself into the door and rubbed my shoulder as he spoke because I knew everything I’d just said to him was going to be wiped away in the next sentence.

‘It’s Clara. She’s been taken to hospital. I need to go.’