Nic stacks them neatly on the left-hand edge of the big table. The table is instantly more solid and homey, the red plastic tray in its centre redder and friendlier. The envelopes have transformed it all into a buzzy little office space. Everything feels more useful and alive. She empties her shopping bags: lays out the glue pot and paintbrush, measuring tape, backing cardboard, ribbon (to trim the edges of the mosaic) and twine (because you always needed twine sooner or later). The right envelopes will come to her, she knows, and when they do there will be this happy little set-up to welcome them.

When Will comes home from his shift at the servo he doesn’t comment on the mosaic supplies or envelopes, though Nic knows he’s clocked them. It’s the central part of their agreement: no nagging or judging as long as the shared spaces stay uncluttered enough to remain functional. Each of them has a room of their own with which the other cannot interfere, no matter how much irritation it provokes with, on the one hand, its fullness and on the other sparseness. Nic’s mum always said compromise means nobody gets what they want. Which is true when it comes to how the house looks, but not true when it comes to who is living in it. Compromise means they both get exactly what they want on that front.

Getting to this point has meant walking over a lot of broken glass and they haven’t finished pulling the shards out yet. Will remains hurt that she abandoned (his word) him while he was in prison and ghosted (Lena’s word) him afterwards. In the damn therapy group (which she attends because she promised Lena and only because she promised Lena) it’s been pointed out that one person’s avoidance of pain often creates more pain for others. Like so many things said in therapy it is both eye-rollingly obvious and very difficult to accept that it might apply to her.

The injuries are not all Will’s. There are days when the broken glass seems almost gone and days when it pierces her with every step. Times she looks across the kitchen table and can’t believe this is her life, this dream: both kids free and safe, eating food she has cooked, chatting and laughing like they’ve never felt or caused sorrow in their lives. And there are times when she can’t stop thinking about what they’ve taken from her, can’t comprehend how people she loves could do such a thing, could roughly bundle up her world and chuck it in the bin.