It felt like I was dying, but I was telling the truth. I’d been recommending she go to therapy from very early on, and she waited two or three years before taking my advice. Now she was reaching the stage of detaching herself from me, and above all, I imagine, of the more important detachment from her father. My darling Chl is growing, or at least she’s doing what she can. She’ll lose a lot … and I’ll lose more; but I think what she’ll gain will be infinitely more valuable. Recovering her libido, for example. And being able to make that list of lovers she spoke of in my dream.

At this dramatic moment, as we both sat red-eyed and tearful, we were holding hands. I felt the warmth of her hand just like in the old days, and I saw that her face was recovering the glorious colours of her usual good health, and her beauty was beginning to shine once more. I realised that the causes of the anxiety which had been torturing her for days were connected to that process of growth.