What I would come to learn was not that his love was false.

It was that it was even deeper, and had cost him even more, than I had ever understood.

Chapter 3 — Fiona

At seventeen minutes past three the following afternoon, after everything, our daughter was born.

Fiona.

We had chosen the name months before, lying awake together, trying it out in the dark.

She arrived crying strongly, breathing normally, completely and perfectly healthy, and the alarms that had so frightened me gave way, at last, to the single most beautiful sound I had ever heard: the furious, indignant cry of my living daughter.

By the time I was fully awake again, soft morning sunlight was spilling through the hospital window, and our little girl was sleeping peacefully in a bassinet beside my bed.