“I believe you.” And she smiled, with tears in her eyes, and said, “And that is exactly why I am standing here.”

Our daughter was born the following autumn, and we named her Naomi.

Our life since has not been a fairy tale; real life never is.

There have been hard frost years and defaulting clients and arguments about money, and there are still nights when Vivienne wakes gasping from a dream of that cellar, and I have had to learn that when it happens she sometimes needs space to breathe rather than arms to hold her, and she has had to learn to tell me which she needs.

Surviving a nightmare does not mean you stop feeling it the next morning.