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I march down to join him. Fury wins.

‘Jack, you have to man up,' I say sharply. ‘Tessa and the baby need you.'

‘I can't do it,' he exclaims. ‘You don't know how it feels, knowing your life is about to change.'

‘For goodness' sake, your life changed from the moment you decided to try for this baby. Don't let yourself – or Tessa – down.' Jack ignores me, too caught up in the emotion of the moment. ‘Look at me. You can do this. I know you can.' I wait for him to respond and, slowly, he turns to me, red-eyed. ‘That's better. Now, come on. If you miss the birth, you'll always regret it.'

‘Okay,' he says, taking a deep breath. ‘Let's do this.'

In theatre, the screens are up and the surgeon is good to go – we make it back just in time.

‘Your husband is here,' I say breezily, as though
nothing's happened. ‘Jack, I'd stay this end if I were you . . . hold her hand.'

From when the surgeon makes the incision, I provide a running commentary for Tessa's benefit.

‘You'll feel a dragging sensation as the baby's coming out.' I watch the surgeon pull the baby, a scrawny and limp scrap of a creature with bluish-purple skin and a tonsure of dark hair, from her womb. ‘He's out now.'

An eerie silence follows as the baby is placed on a towel in the arms of one of the team of specialists standing by, and bundled across to the trolley on the other side of theatre, where he is surrounded by a crowd of doctors and nurses. There are mutterings of Apgar scores and orders to intubate and administer drugs, but no baby's cry.

‘Is he alive? Is he breathing?' Tessa asks tearfully as Jack stands with her, grim-faced.

‘We don't know yet. They're giving him oxygen and drugs to stimulate his breathing.' The expressions on everyone's faces are beginning to worry me deeply. Even the surgeon looks grim as she stitches and staples Tessa's Caesarean wound closed.

‘Please, let me see my baby,' she begs, but I know as the paediatrician approaches us that any hope of that in the immediate future is impossible. He addresses Jack and Tessa.

‘Your baby's made it this far, but he isn't breathing for himself, so we're having to do it for him. We're taking him straight to intensive care, which is one of the options that we talked about before.'

‘How is his heart . . .?' Jack asks, his voice quavering. ‘Is he going to live?'

‘I can't give you any answers just yet. I'll see you both later.'

Jack is on his knees with his arms around Tessa's shoulders. They are both sobbing. I can hardly bear it. After a while, when the surgery's over and the screens have been removed, Tessa glances up at me.

‘What happens now?' she murmurs, her face pale and her eyes ringed with dark shadows. ‘I want my baby.'

‘I know, but I'm afraid it'll be a few hours yet. You'll be on the ward for a while to recover from the epidural. Jack can go and see the baby, take some pictures and bring them back for you.' I hand her some tissues to mop up her tears. ‘It's horrible being apart like this, but he's in the best place.' I don't say it, but I realise from experience that no news is probably good news at this point. If there was no hope for the baby, the team on the unit would be doing their utmost to bring mum, dad and baby together to spend the last precious moments together and say goodbye. ‘Why don't I ask your mum and dad to come and sit with you while Jack goes to the unit?'

‘The last time we heard, they were in the coffee shop,' Jack says.

‘I'll find them.' I fetch Tessa's parents, Steve and Annie, leaving them with their daughter while I accompany Jack to intensive care, where we find the baby in an incubator. He's wearing a light blue woolly hat and he's surrounded by tubes and leads and
monitors. His eyes are closed, his skin mottled, and although a machine is breathing for him, his chest seems to collapse and expand much more than it should with each breath. The nurse with him explains that he's in a critical but stable condition. He's had a scan and the doctor is talking to the paediatric cardiologist about the possibility of surgery to close the hole in his heart. He will need surgery, but it's whether it has to be done now, or can be left until he's older and his condition's improved.

It's a relief that the baby is alive and that everything is being done that can be to help him, even though there could be months, or years, of worry ahead. I look towards Jack, but I don't think he's taking in the information. His eyes are on his baby, his expression a mixture of deep anxiety, love and adoration.

The sight of father and son sends a sharp pain knifing through my belly. The bond – even though Jack tried to resist it – is there, a natural instinct, and once again I think of Lewis and how unfair of me it would be to deprive him of the chance of fatherhood.

‘Are you okay?' I ask him.

‘Yeah,' he responds. ‘I'll take some photos on my mobile – if you wouldn't mind taking them to show Tessa, I'll stay here for a while.'

‘Of course I don't mind.' I smile to myself. What happened to the man who didn't want Tessa to have this baby when there was so much uncertainty surrounding his health? I watch him take several snaps before I take his mobile to show Tessa and her parents. I repeat what the nurse said and then make my excuses
and leave, but not before Steve Wilde ambushes me with a friendly bear hug, squeezing all the air out of my lungs.

‘Thank you,' he says. ‘You've been wonderful.'

‘I haven't really been able to do very much,' I stammer as he releases me.

‘I know that if you could have done, you would have waved a magic wand and all would have been well with my beautiful grandson, but as it is, you've been a marvellous support to my daughter and, if he'd only admit it, my son-in-law as well.'

‘I'll pop in tomorrow to catch up with Tessa and the baby,' I say. ‘I'm sure they'll both be staying for a few days at least. Go on. Go back to your daughter.'

I go on to do my visits, knowing that this is a day that Tessa and Jack will never forget. I'll never forget it either, and that's what makes being a midwife more than a job. You become part of people's lives.

When I finish my shift, I decide to meet Lewis, the man who's become such a big part of my life to the extent that I can't bear to think of going on without him. To think it has come to this when I started out with all good intentions to keep our relationship on a casual basis, just for fun. I thought I could deal with it, but my attraction to Lewis was too strong, too powerful to resist, and now it's all the more agonising that it has to come to an end.

I find him out in the barn with the new ram.

‘Hi,' he says, moving across to kiss me. I turn slightly, offering my cheek. ‘Good timing. I was just about ready to stop for tea. How was your day?'

‘Okay.' I shrug.

‘I heard Tessa's baby's in intensive care. Murray told me – the news is out.' Lewis reaches out his hand. ‘I'm sorry. It must be hard sometimes. Let me give you a hug.'

There's nothing I want more than to fall into his arms, but I know I can't. The longer I drag this out, the worse it will be for both of us. I take a step back.

‘Lewis, we need to talk,' I say, more sharply than intended.

‘Sounds ominous?' He cocks one eyebrow. ‘Is there something wrong? There is, isn't there?' he challenges when I don't respond. ‘You've been . . . I can only describe it as a bit cool towards me. I got the impression when you didn't want to stay last night that it was because you were going off me.'

‘It isn't that,' I say.

‘So there is something wrong.' His voice is husky with concern. ‘What is it? You're scaring me. Are you trying to say what I think you are? I thought everything was great between us. We're so good together. I've never met anyone like you before.' Lewis runs his hands through his hair. ‘When we first met, I didn't think we'd have much in common—'

‘I know,' I interrupt, but he continues, ‘I feel like you're part of me, Zara. Please don't tell me it's over.'

‘I'm sorry.' My brow is tight, my chest aching.

‘So who is it?'

‘There's no one else, I assure you.'

‘Is it Paul?'

‘No . . . Why should this have anything to do with him?'

‘Because he's always trying to stir up trouble between us. The last time I saw him I was with Murray at the pub. He came over, bought me a beer and started talking about how you left him because you were all screwed up about not being able to have a baby. He said you'd do the same to me.'

‘That's a lie,' I exclaim. ‘What did he think he was doing?'

‘Trying to break us up. He's a devious little man who for some reason known only to himself doesn't want you to be happy. It's all right. I told him to f*** off. Was I right not to believe him?'

‘You certainly were. To think I've tried to be nice to him and keep some kind of friendship going, and all this time he's been stabbing me in the back!'

‘So what is it?' Lewis says, returning to the original subject.

‘I've been thinking and I can't . . .' I frown. ‘Don't say anything. Let me speak. You told me when we first met that you wanted kids, and when I see you with Poppy and Daisy, I can see you're going to be a fantastic dad one day. I can't let you sacrifice the chance of having children and a family of your own for me. You're young and you have plenty of time to find someone else.'

‘But I don't want anybody else. I want you. I love you,' Lewis says.

‘I know you love me,' I say in a low voice. ‘You don't just say it, you show it in every way, the little things
you say and do; but eventually you'll come to resent me for not being able to give you a child.'

‘This is because of Paul, isn't it? He's poisoned you.' Lewis grabs my shoulders and presses his fingers into my flesh. ‘I'm not like your ex-husband. I would never come to resent you.' He relaxes his grip and runs his hands up and down my arms. ‘I would never tire of you.'

‘Sh!' I touch my fingertip to his lips. ‘It's easy to say you aren't bothered now but, trust me, I've seen the way childlessness can eat away at a relationship.' It's true: I've seen how it can devour love and destroy a couple.

‘We could always adopt. There are other ways of having a family.'

‘I know.' I see it all the time. During my experience as a midwife, I've seen babies given up for adoption or taken into care for fostering, and I've met pregnant women acting as surrogates. I've seen couples go through the stresses of IVF as Paul and I did, and fall apart after the arrival of a much-wanted baby. ‘You see, you say you don't mind, but you're already thinking of the options,' I point out. ‘You can't put your hand on your heart and tell me honestly that you'll never yearn to be a father.'

‘I might regret it from time to time,' he admits, ‘but that's only natural. It wouldn't be the be-all and end-all to me. Zara, I wouldn't expect you to go through any treatments or procedures if you didn't want to. I want you, not a baby.' He hesitates, his voice choked. ‘We can be a ready-made family – you, me and the dogs.'

‘It isn't the same,'
I insist. I am crying. Lewis is crying. I love him, adore him, because he's perfect, funny, warm and energetic, but I have to let him go so he can be free to move on. I steel myself. ‘It's over. I'm sorry. I hope you find what you're looking for.' I tear myself away and run across the yard to my car, jump in and drive off with Lewis running alongside, banging on the window with his fist.

‘Zara, please listen to me.'

I pull away at speed, bumping down the farm track through the puddles. When I glance back, Lewis is standing staring after me, his shoulders slumped and his face and sweater plastered in mud. Our romance is over and I'm utterly devastated. I need to talk to someone and all I can think of is my sister, but I can't go back to the farm for fear of increasing my torment by running into Lewis again, so I pull in further down the lane and call her on my mobile, but she isn't answering her phone and it's Murray who pulls in alongside the car in his tractor and jumps out.

He knocks on the window. Reluctantly, I open it, blowing my nose at the same time.

‘Can I help you?' he asks with a goofy smile. ‘Are you all right?'

‘I'm fine,' I say, choking.

‘You aren't. What on earth's happened?' My shoulder is clamped by Murray's vice-like grip – his way of comforting me, I think.

‘Lewis and I are finished. It's over.'

‘The bastard.' Murray presses a grubby finger to his lips. ‘I didn't have him down as one of those.'

‘He isn't.'

‘I could thump him one for making you cry. In fact, I'm going to set him straight.'

‘No, don't make things any worse.'

‘It might make him see sense and, if not, I'll make sure he sees stars, at least. After all he's said about you and what Emily and I have done for him. He's an ungrateful sod.'

‘Really, don't . . .' I take a deep breath. ‘It was me. I finished with him.'

‘You did!'

‘Yes, I did,' I say miserably. ‘I've made up my mind and there's nothing anyone can do or say to change it.'

‘Why don't you come back to the house? We'll put the kettle on.'

‘That's very kind, but I can't face anyone right now.'

‘Well, what are you going to do? You can't sit here all night.'

‘You're right . . . I should go home.'

‘I can drive you if you like.'

‘I'll be fine,' I sigh. ‘Thanks, Murray. Tell Emily I'll be in touch.'

Murray reaches through and pats my hand on the wheel.

‘You know where we are if you need us. Don't worry, I'll see Lewis is all right. We'll have a few beers.'