The locks made her feel safe enough to nap when it was dark outside, but the physical barrier it created between her and Patrick underlined their separateness: they were no longer a team. There was no point trying to wake him in the night, to watch over the babies or to help; it was easier just to get on with it herself, to stay awake when she needed to, and to sleep only when she and the boys were secure. For Patrick’s part, he’d dropped off his caring cliff: I care, I care, I care, I would care but I simply do not have the time or energy to care anymore, mostly because of all that caring you just made me do. He implied, in both his speech and his actions, that baby-rearing was exclusively Lauren’s department, and always would have been, obviously: the roles were pre-determined; man/woman, breadwinner/homemaker. The gut-punch of dismay was unexpected. Why hadn’t she realised before now that he was so old-fashioned? Would she have married him, if she’d known? It seemed too much to try to argue, to wriggle out from under the weight of it all.

So, she would cope, because it wasn’t a choice. Patrick was encouraging, even if he wasn’t there very much. He sent regular “Love you’ texts. And he always said, when he eventually did come home, what a great job she was doing, even as he let his eyes wander to the piles of unwashed clothes, the half-empty tin of beans with a spoon sticking out, the unopened mail on the doormat. Even as he whispered urgently into the phone to his sister so that the moment he hung up, Lauren’s phone pinged with a message from Ruthie, breezily asking after her and the boys, promising to drop by as soon as she could.

*   *   *

When someone knocked on the front door, she thought about leaving it. It wouldn’t be Ruthie, not at this time; she’d be at work. Lauren stood in the arch between the kitchen and the sitting room, as still as she could, so that whoever it was might just think she wasn’t in and go away. But then, one of the boys made a loud sound, and the letter-box flapped open. A set of manicured fingers waggled at her through the gap.

“You going to let me in, babe?”

It was Cindy. Lauren crossed the room and opened the front door to her friend.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” she said, turning and quickly picking up several dirty cups from the carpet. “But come on in.”