‘How about you go to school this morning and I’ll pick you up early this afternoon,’ I suggested.

Thankfully she welcomed this compromise and got ready for the day without much encouragement.

Although Payton was in Year 5, I was very involved at her school and had a group of mum friends I’d known since she was in Kinder. Most days when I dropped her off or picked her up, I got out of my car and socialised with these women. I wouldn’t say we’d be close if it weren’t for the kids, but we’d been on oodles of committees together and enjoyed enough mums’ nights out that some minor confidences had been shared.

Surface friends, I’d call them; nothing like the bond I shared with Hayley.

Today the thought of facing them terrified me. Surely they’d notice my puffy eyes and wonder what was up. That’s if they hadn’t already heard my news. Adrian cycled with a few of the other dads and I knew they had a WhatsApp group where they shared not only details of upcoming runs but also stupid jokes and other stuff. Stuff like marital splits? I cringed.

But while logic told me Adrian wasn’t that much of a wanker that he’d have sent a group announcement, nothing felt certain anymore and I wasn’t ready to answer questions about my private life, so I dropped Payton off in the Kiss and Drive and said I’d see her at lunchtime.

With over an hour till Hayley’s arrival, I stopped at Woolies on the way home as I did every Monday. After a weekend with two kids at home—one of whom was a hollow-legged teenage boy—the cupboards were bare. Even if our world was falling apart, we had to eat.

Suddenly a thought struck—what on earth would my kids live on when it was Adrian’s week with them? His idea of a balanced meal was a piece of steak and frozen chips with ice-cream for dessert. Protein, carbs, veggies and dairy. I used to find it cute when he said things like that, but now that it might be about to become my children’s reality, it wasn’t so funny anymore.

Just one more thing to add to my growing list of reasons to resent him.

‘Ashling!’ Lost in my thoughts I didn’t notice Melissa Diamond (mum of Payton’s school nemesis and wife of one of Adrian’s lycra-wearing buddies) coming up the aisle. She wore her usual attire of expensive activewear, although I’d never seen her as much as walk a kilometre in her life.

‘Hi.’ I pasted on a cheesy smile and sucked in my stomach, aware of the waistband of my jeans cutting into my flesh. Was that why Adrian was chasing new skirt? I’d let myself go and he no longer found me attractive?

‘How are you?’ Melissa cocked her head and gave me a pitying look—she knew!—although the amount of genuine sympathy she was capable of would fit in her little finger.

I was going to kill Adrian.