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‘How?’

‘I was ten when Beatrice was born.’ He said her name for the first time in forever with a smile. ‘I did pick a few things up.’

Then he took her drink.

‘Do you know, we’ve never danced.’

It was bliss to be in his arms, to be held, to not quite know all the details of what had happened but to know he was here, that the Gabe she knew was back.

‘We can take it slowly…’ she said.

‘No.’

‘I mean us. I already know you’re going to be a brilliant father, but we haven’t dated or even danced or…’

‘We’ve loved each other from the very start though.’

Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I think so.’ She could admit it to herself now. ‘Yes.’

‘So, no more talk of taking things slow. We’re in this for life.’

She nodded.

‘You need to unpack,’ he said, his hand warm on her spine.

‘Do I?’

‘And you need to change floors.’

They walked home in the balmy warm night, hand in hand.

‘I can call for a driver…’

‘No.’

She wanted to walk and to talk and to be bathed by the stars as she grew to know him some more…

And he told her about Beatice, the hardest part, that he’d kept to himself.

‘It wasn’t quite instant.’

She looked over and understood better then. ‘It gave my grandfather peace to think it was. I was in the back with her.’

‘Did she suffer?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘She was asleep really, but I always worry that she was scared, what she heard, or felt. I tried to think what my parents would do for her.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Talked to her, sang, as I did for my grandfather, the things people do for those that they love.’

Except he’d been ten.

‘She was four weeks old. It almost felt it would have been better not to have had a sister…to have loved her and then know so much pain, and I never wanted to love another again.’

‘She made people happy,’ Stella said. ‘I know it’s the wrong thing to say at times, but Beatrice really did make your parents and you so happy.’

‘Yes,’ he said, and for a gentle moment looked back. ‘And I can see that now; they were so complete.’