He gets up and throws the rest of his drink in the sink. The smell bounces around the room. He puts the lid on the bottle and returns it to the cupboard.

‘Lewis?’

‘I need to sort my head out, Yvie.’ He looks tired and worn. It’s the oldest she’s ever seen him look. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘Sorry for what?’

The smell is nauseating.

He doesn’t return to the table, but stands with his hands in his pockets, his jaw flexing slightly while he thinks of what to say next. ‘We can’t do this anymore. It’s not going to work.’

What is he talking about?

‘I’ve got to raise my son.’

‘We’re in this together, Lewis.’

But he shakes his head. ‘No, we’re not. I need my family right now and I can’t lie to them.’

‘Then, don’t lie to them. Tell them. We’ll deal with whatever comes next together.’

‘I’m worried about you being here even now. About Kiama seeing you and if it’ll trigger something in him about what he saw.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’ And hurtful. ‘If anything, it will help him to have someone to talk to about what happened.’

‘I’m worried about you being around. I’m sorry but it’s the truth. I need to protect him. I don’t need the added stress of our relationship on top of everything else. It’s just me and Kiama now. He needs me. He’s falling apart and I need to fix him.’

Yvonne shoves her chair back and moves closer, ‘He needs us both. We can do this together. We can get through it together.’

‘We pushed her to go there,’ he says, causing Yvonne to stop in front of him. ‘Both of us did. It’s our fault he was put in harm’s way. That he witnessed what he did.’

‘Don’t say that. We never knew what would happen.’

‘We did. You said it yourself, how dangerous the city was. How much you didn’t even want to go out there, yet you pushed her to go, you pushed and pushed. Because it suited us and now she’s gone.’ He wipes his face and then his voice changes. ‘Kiama needs me and that’s what I need to focus on. I can’t get distracted by anything else.’ He looks at her, and there’s no room for doubt in his expression. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s over. It has to be.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Home

November 2020

Kiama

A Tribe Called Quest plays in the kitchen. Kiama grabs his coat from the bannister and quietly creaks the front door open, but Dad hears and calls him through. He puts his coat on before squeezing past the boxes marked ‘Xmas Decs’ and into the doorway of the kitchen.

Dad holds a ball of tangled fairy lights in his hands. ‘You off out?’