Instinctively, I lifted Fiona and held her closer against my chest, some animal part of me responding to the fear in the room by pulling my child in tight.

Her little body was warm, her cheeks pink, her breathing calm and rhythmic.

To me, she looked absolutely perfect.

“She’s your daughter, Luca,” I said firmly, because in my panic I had leapt to the only interpretation that fit his words, and it wounded me.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

A single tear rolled down his pale cheek, and he slowly collapsed into the chair beside my hospital bed, as though his legs had given out beneath him, and buried his face in his hands for a long, suffocating moment.

Then he whispered, without looking up, “There’s something I should have told you years ago.” I stared at him, my heart hammering against my ribs.