But as I looked around my house, my chest tightened. I’d expected to come home to a pigsty, but it was almost eerily clean and tidy. The remotes had even been returned to their little box next to the television. The kitchen sparkled, the dining table was absent of the usual crumbs, the dishwasher was empty. In fact, there were no signs that anyone had eaten anything all week.

A thought struck and, already feeling victorious, I checked the rubbish bin, expecting to see Macca’s bags or other restaurant containers, but all I found was an empty bin with a fresh liner. My suspicion growing, I stalked to the outside bins—Charlie toddling after me—and stooped to an all-time low. When there was no evidence of Adrian and the kids living on fast food, I rifled deep down into the bin, but all I was rewarded with for my efforts was gunk in my hair and dirt on my hands.

I looked down at Charlie who was looking up at me, his head cocked to one side as if wondering if I was looking for something to tighten the few screws that were obviously loose in my head. ‘What’s been going on around here?’

In reply, he turned back to the house and, defeated, I followed him inside to continue my inspection. Aside from a load of clothes in the dryer, the laundry looked as if someone had readied it for real estate photos.

Could that be it? No. I reached out to steady myself on the counter. No way Adrian would organise to sell the house without me. The nest-parenting arrangement would only work if we kept it.

Then again, he’d decided we would separate without me.

As goosebumps spread across my skin, I hurried back into the kitchen and grabbed my phone from my handbag. My fingers flew across the screen: What the hell do you think you’re playing at? Why is the house so bloody clean? You can’t

But I halted mid-sentence. I didn’t want him to think I was impressed. If he was trying to sell the house without me, I’d enlist that lawyer person Hayley knew. Just because I still loved him, didn’t mean I was going to let him totally walk all over me. This was our home. This was the kids’ home.

However, the alternative wasn’t much better—if he hadn’t had a cleaner in to make the house presentable for selling, then somehow he’d managed this week without me.

Not wanting to believe this, I went into the kids’ rooms next. Although Saxon’s had that lingering smell of teenage boy—which, even as I gagged, almost made me cry because I’d missed it so much—it was much cleaner than usual, and in Payton’s room everything was spick-and-span too. Even her cuddly toys were lined up neatly on the funky shelves I’d made out of a wooden pallet.

Finally, I braved our bedroom—the space that had always felt like a sanctuary to me. A lump welled in my throat as my gaze went to our bedside tables. Normally Adrian had a few business books on his, and I had my home renovation and decor magazines on mine, but they were both empty. And it wasn’t only the bedside tables—he’d stripped the room of anything personal belonging to either of us and put my stuff in a large box in the wardrobe with my name on it. The side of the wardrobe where all his clothes usually hung was bare—he’d obviously taken all his stuff to Brad’s.