When I’ve slid her mug across to her and she’s wrapped her hands around its warmth I ask, ‘What happened?’

‘I… I can’t…’

Can’t tell me?

Can’t bear to think about it?

‘Can’t?’ I gently probe but she doesn’t reply. Instead, she leans back in her chair, increasing the distance between us, crossing her arms over her chest as though she’s either trying to keep her feelings in or my questions out. Perhaps both.

‘You said Fergus left? Have you seen him since you called me?’

She shakes her head. ‘I don’t think he’s coming back.’

I feel a swell of sadness as she says this. As much as I love Melissa, I adore Fergus too. He’s devoted to his family. I can’t imagine what caused him to leave. I’m at a loss with how to comfort her, how to even begin to piece her back together when I don’t know what’s broken her apart.

Broken them.

‘Mel. What’s going on? Please tell me.’ I don’t promise everything will be okay because I don’t know if it will. All I can do is listen the way I have so many times over the years, in the same way she always lets me offload. It always helps. I can’t understand her reluctance to talk.

She’s staring at the table, her eyes shiny with fresh tears that she’s fighting to contain and I’m reminded of the glassy eyes of those dead crows. I’m probably on the wrong track but I ask, ‘Is this connected to the boys, to Hailey?’ Connor going back to school has been a source of tension in our house; I know Melissa and Fergus have struggled with what happened, Fergus’s part in it, what’s best for Ryan.

‘No. It’s not that.’ She picks up her mug and takes a sip but her hands are shaking so hard tea sloshes over her fingers. I notice she’s bitten her nails again, a habit she’d quit many moons ago.

I give her a chance to collect her thoughts, to speak, but she doesn’t. Her lips are pursed together. Out of the two of us she’s always been the talker, the oversharer. It’s unsettling, her silence, and I rush to fill it, not wanting to voice the unimaginable but I ask it anyway.

‘Has Fergus… has he hurt you?’ He’s so gentle I can’t imagine it but last night she sounded scared, today she looks it.