But late nights and early mornings exhausted me, and during the week I became more and more tired, less able to listen, less able even to do simple things like sort laundry with a clear mind. Thank God for Saturdays then, when Stephen would take the children and I would sleep, and sleep, and sleep, and occasionally wake up to remember it was Saturday and I was free, relatively. I would turn over believing that I could with great content spend several weeks, if not my whole life, in bed.

Sometime around noon Stephen and Elliott and Katie would come proudly in, carrying coffee, a breakfast tray and a flower. It was part of their Saturday morning ritual: they would go for a walk after their breakfast, stop somewhere to buy me a flower, and then come home and make my breakfast. I remember Katie always got to carry the flower.

They made different things — pancakes, eggs, once even chocolate cake, and although my stomach always lurched at the thought of food as soon as I woke up, I didn’t have the heart not to eat it all and tell them how good it was and how much I appreciated what they’d done. And I did; always their proud faces touched me, for it was done with love. And yet when I woke up on Saturdays, usually just before they came in, there was always a pinch of dread in my stomach, a gearing up for the performance.

Later, after I was dressed and had had another cup of coffee, listening all the while to Elliott and Katie talk about their morning with their father, arguing over details and interrupting each other, and yet at the same time happy that they had shared all this with Stephen, we would do something together, go skating or swimming, depending on the season, or for a drive around the city, and often we would stop somewhere and have dinner and then come home and the children would go to bed. Saturday was their favourite day because we were all together doing things. Stephen used to tell me he didn’t know how I could look after them all week, when he was exhausted after just a day. He sounded as if he honestly admired what I did.

The memories of those years have a sameness, a furriness, as if nothing at all happened for days and months and years except for that routine. Could it really have been that way? Is it true that nothing happened?