That one miscarriage turned out to be Rachel’s only pregnancy. And the space where children might have been, where we both had imagined them in our lives, became a silence that neither of us visited. We talked about everything – or so I believed – except children. Now I realise we didn’t talk about mothers either. Rachel and her darling Joanna were here from Friday to Wednesday. We didn’t swim in the sea or walk to the pub. We spent four precious days sat by the fire, together. Clachan, as ever, took care of us.
