‘Why should I let you? You took my son away!’ His voice is loud in a room where no men are allowed. It reaches all the corners and for the first time Beth fears her husband. ‘I lost everything I loved. I lost a baby. He was mine too. You never cared about that bit, did you? I lost him, I lost you, and then you took Lenny. I’ve been dying, Beth. Dying.’

‘I’ll get help. I’ll do anything.’ Beth actually means it this time.

‘No. We’re done. You can call him. That’s it.’ Beth goes to protest, and he stops her with a hand. ‘It’s more than you gave me.’

Beth can’t argue with that, so she just nods in defeat.

‘We’ll tell him you have a job here and can’t come back for a while.’

‘I don’t have a job.’

‘I don’t care. Lie. You’re good at that. I assume you lied to him about where I was?’

‘I said you were away, working.’

‘I was at home, living by the phone.’

‘I slept with someone else. While I was here.’ He has to know the extent of it all.

For a moment Greg looks like he might be sick. ‘I don’t care.’

‘It was Lenny’s teacher, at the school. Then I hit him, too. I need help. I know I need help. I think I have postnatal depression, at the very least.’

‘Fuck, Beth, what do you want me to say? You’ve broken me in every single way a man can be broken. How dare you tell me this now – look at me – like you think I can fix you?’

Tess knocks once at the door and they both straighten. Beth wipes her eyes and Greg clears his throat. Beth can see a vein pulsing in his neck, as he races to the door and pulls it open.

‘Lenny. Lenny. My boy. My boy.’

‘Dad! You found us!’ Beth has to look away from their reunion. Greg saying hello to his son, like a soldier returning from a war she started.

Then it is time for her to say goodbye, to rip her heart from her chest so it can remain with her son. ‘Play along,’ Greg hisses in her ear, when she goes to hug Lenny.

Beth chokes back her sobs, and holds her son, and promises him she’ll see him soon and tells him to be a good boy. ‘Show your dad how good you are at football, won’t you?’

She doesn’t go out to the car. It’s too much. She might throw herself under it.

George

(You can keep the hanky)