I waited for his wife to get up to use the bathroom and finally asked him the question that had been burning at the forefront of my mind for the last hour.

“Was she OK with it all?”

He nodded. “Yeah, she’s fine.”

“Seriously?”

“She thought it was sweet actually…”

“She read it?”

“She read it before I did.”

With unintentional dramatic flourish, I put my head in my hands. After a brief moment of silent groaning, I cautiously raised my head. “Oh God, really?”

“Yeah, she read it, then passed it to me, saying, ‘It’s lovely, but it might make you cry.’”

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head. “No. And she wasn’t wrong: it was lovely, really touching.”

My heart stopped pounding for a moment. “Thank God. I was so worried…”

“Worried?”

I bit my lip. “Well, yeah. I thought… I was nervous… I just worried that… you know, that it might affect things, and I was so scared that it might… that I might cause some problems between you… I never wanted that to happen; I had no control over all this…”

He interrupted me. “We’re fine; everything’s fine. You have no need to worry: it was a long time ago – and she thinks the things you said were really sweet… And we’re both very proud of you: this is a massive accomplishment.”

I blushed, recalling the explicitness of what I had written, but feeling a surge of pride too. To have him say that; to know how they both felt, was a massive relief, but it also made me feel their love and support for me – something that I really needed, because I was worried that through everything that had happened, that I might have lost that.

He leaned in and took a sip from his coffee. I followed suit, and in my inimitable clumsy way, I proceeded to knock the table with my knee, spilling my coffee everywhere as I did so. He laughed and as I looked up at him sheepishly and shrugged – it’s in my nature to be a klutz – we shared a smile, and I knew that everything was going to be OK.