* * *

When the babies fell asleep, the parents followed each other upstairs and laid them top to toe in the Moses basket that stood next to the bed. The bed that, until this moment, Lauren and Patrick had always shared.

They soft-footed downstairs. Patrick seemed to feel that he hadn’t said enough. The two of them stood, mirroring each other’s crossed arms, on either side of the breakfast bar while they waited for their mugs of tea to heat up in the microwave.

“Please, my love. I know it’s terrible of me to ask, and I wouldn’t if I thought I could go on. I just need a break from it. That’s all I’m saying. Just one night, and then, I don’t know. See how it goes.”

There was a long silence. Lauren couldn’t think how to begin. She kept returning to what he’d said: one of us has to make that sacrifice. What about her sacrifice? The babies were a precious gift, a blessing, of course they were. But if he couldn’t see the extent of what she’d lost, what she might never get back—not just her body, but also her budding career as a sculptor, clients, friends, hobbies, practically everything—then what hope was there?

“How about this,” said Patrick. “While I’m still off, I’ll help as much as I can during the days, and you can do the nights. Like a sort of tag-team situation. Is that fair?”

His voice was distant, as if she’d stuffed her ears with cotton wool.

He came around and leaned on the counter next to her. “I can’t do much anyway, can I? I don’t have the right equipment, for a start.” He chortled lightly, and touched her left breast. She withdrew as if burned.

He was so beautiful to look at. Such good stock. The sort of man who made you want to breed, because you knew your children would have a head start, looks-wise. But she’d begun to understand him properly now. Look at someone every day for long enough and you stop seeing what everyone else sees. You start to see what no one else sees, what is kept hidden from most people. And she’d caught a flash of emptiness behind those lapis-blue eyes. A chasm. A vacuum. She wasn’t ready to see that. Turning towards him, she searched his face and her memories for the part of him that she’d fallen in love with. She held in her mind an image of him at twenty-one, trying hard to help her, nursing her back to health that time, him knowing that it was the right thing to do, and doing it even though it didn’t come naturally.

“Patrick,” she said, “I can’t …”

“Don’t be silly, darling.”

The image of the younger Patrick clicked off, gone. And how ridiculous, trying to invoke that Patrick, such an insubstantial version and so fleeting anyway, here for six days ten years ago and forever after talked about like an Arthurian legend: Oh Lauren, remember that time you were sick all over my flat and I cleaned it up? Wasn’t I such an uncomplaining saint? Aren’t you glad you married me?