During the day, I lay in bed much longer than usual. What did I have to get up for? I hoped that if I slept, the time until I could see my children again would go faster. But then I didn’t sleep any better when it was light than when it was dark, so inevitably I forced myself to get up. Although I’d lost the inclination to shower and eat, I kept my daily hygiene routine and ate three basic meals a day. I couldn’t afford to let myself go.

After breakfast, I’d clean Hayley’s apartment, which in my opinion was in dire need of not only a spring clean, but also a summer, winter and autumn one. I had no idea how she lived like she did, but she didn’t seem to notice the clutter, which in turn hid the dirt.

‘I’d almost forgotten those tiles were beige,’ she’d joked as she surveyed her bathroom on my first day of residence.

The next day I’d tackled the kitchen. ‘You know you don’t have to do that,’ she’d said when she returned from a flight to Port Headland and back.

But I couldn’t cook in a dirty space and that was the activity that kept me busy through the afternoons. Until today.

Today, I couldn’t handle the confined walls of Hayley’s apartment a moment longer and, more to the point, I couldn’t handle another day without seeing my kids. As Hayley was flying and a local colleague had picked her up on his way to the airport, her Audi was in the underground car park just waiting for an outing.

Praying I wouldn’t have any accidents while driving her prized possession—but figuring I’d be less likely to be noticed by other school mums than in my own car—I drove the fifteen minutes to Payton’s school. Instead of parking or even idling in the Kiss and Drive drop-off-pick-up area, I stopped across the road underneath a big gum tree, hopefully hidden from the world but with a vantage point where I’d see my girl when she walked out of the school grounds.

About thirty seconds after the siren, a faded black hatchback screeched into the car park and stopped illegally on the verge. A woman—if you could call her that, she didn’t look much older than Saxon—climbed out and hurried towards the gate.

How on earth she could walk in those tight black shorts and ridiculously high heels I had no clue. From the back, I couldn’t see much, aside from the fact her jet-black hair was tied up in the messiest ponytail I’d ever seen and that her also-tight top was only midriff as it exposed the bare skin of her back.

Hopefully she’s wearing sunscreen, I thought as I turned up my car’s air conditioning.

A few minutes later, I startled and banged my head on the sun visor as I saw Payton coming out, holding the hand of and chatting animatedly to the woman from the black car. Even from this distance I could make out the stranger’s heavy black eyeliner and black lipstick and something glinted on her bare midriff, telling me she had a belly button ring.