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Monday morning he is worse.

I know because I check at six, the hand on his forehead, the quiet assessment, and the fever has not broken. 38.8°C. He is asleep and slightly flushed and his breathing is the heavier kind that means his body is working on something.

I go to my study and sit at my desk.

I have a flight at nine-fifteen. A meeting in Frankfurt at two. A dinner on Tuesday, a presentation Wednesday morning. Three nights, fully booked, the kind of work trip that requires coordination across four departments and does not reschedule easily.

I open my laptop.

I look at the flight time. 09:15. I need to leave by 07:30.

I go back to the bedroom.

Patrick is still asleep. His face in the pillow, the heavier breathing, the slight flush across his cheekbones. His hand is on my side of the bed — where I was, reaching for something that isn't there anymore.

I stand in the doorway for a moment.

He will be fine without me. I know this. I am being irrational.

I am also aware that I would spend three days in Frankfurt thinking about whether he is fine. Some things are more important than work. This is one of them.

Then I go back to my study and open my laptop and email my assistant at 06:14.

Anna — I need to move Frankfurt. Patrick is unwell and I'm staying in Amsterdam. Please reschedule the Tuesday dinner and Wednesday morning presentation. I'll join the Monday two o'clock by video. Apologies for the short notice.

She replies at 06:51: Of course. Feel better soon to Patrick. I'll sort everything.

I close the laptop.

Patrick, when he surfaces at eight, finds me in the kitchen making porridge.

"You're still here," he says. His voice has the quality of someone whose throat is doing something unpleasant.

"Yes," I say.

"You have Frankfurt."

"I moved it."

He leans against the kitchen doorway. He is wearing the large grey sweatshirt he sleeps in when he is cold, which he only does when he is actually cold, and his hair is doing something complicated. He looks terrible. He also looks, I note this, as I note most things, entirely himself, in the way that illness strips away the managed version and leaves only the essential person.

"You didn't have to do that," he says.

"I know," I say.

“Jan…”

"Sit down," I say. "The porridge isn't ready."

He sits down. He watches me at the stove for a moment with the expression of someone who has something to say and has decided not to say it.

"Thank you," he says. Quietly.

"Eat something first," I say.

Monday is a long day.

At 09:00, while Patrick sleeps, I open my phone and order groceries — fresh vegetables for soup, the apple variety Patrick prefers, more grapes, the herbal tea he likes in the evenings, extra paracetamol. I have calls until noon, so I order it all for delivery. It arrives at eleven. I unpack it in the kitchen and start the soup — a proper one, from scratch, onion and carrot and celery and the chicken stock I find at the back of the cupboard. It takes an hour. I don't mind.