Easy for him to say; he ran 10k every other day. Exercise didn’t do a damned thing for her. After a long day in the shop, her legs and head were heavy. She’d been walking back and forth between the shelves for hours, even though customers had been few and far between. She had seen some people inside the mall, though, people who had turned and pointed a finger in her direction when they thought she wasn’t looking.

Some people who didn’t know who she was had entered the shop, filled with anticipation and visions of what their soon-to-be-borns would look like in a light-blue babygro, a pink hat or a couple of delicate, fluffy socks. Susanne was happy for them. She remembered those days with affection. The certainty that they were creating a family. They were laying the foundations for the rest of their lives.

But instead of helping the parents-to-be, instead of supporting and sharing all her experience and wisdom as a mother, instead of telling them all about the wonderful times ahead, she’d found herself overwhelmed by the need to warn them. Stop, she had wanted to say. Go back, before it’s too late. You have no idea what you’re getting yourselves into.

But it was already too late. Everyone who entered the store was past the stage when they had shared the news of the pregnancy with their family and friends. And what the hell was she going to tell them anyway: that the likelihood of them going their separate ways in a year or ten was huge? That they wouldn’t love each other anymore when the hardships of their everyday lives became too demanding, or when other temptations crossed their paths sometime in the future? That it was – that it is – incredibly difficult to raise one child, let alone two? That it was insanely, fucking hard?

She couldn’t do that.

What good would that do?

Susanne had been glad that social services had managed to get her a job. She’d just wished it could be something different, somewhere else. She didn’t need daily reminders of how good life could be. How good life once had been.

Nine minutes.

She was sweaty. Or maybe just warm, she wasn’t sure. The sound of the treadmill almost hypnotised her. She found herself humming to the sound of it, trying to hold the notes as long as possible, just as she had when she had been singing in the choir with Cecilie and the others. Susanne hadn’t sung in years, though, and she didn’t have the breath for it anymore, either, nor the stomach muscles. So she stopped and watched the digital display instead, the white dot that was halfway through a 400-metre lap. She urged it to move forwards, one blip at a time.