The one they stupidly thought could save them.

Make them a real family.

They don’t want to shout at the kids or tell them off. Because neither wants to be the bad parent. Because they only truly love them now. And it doesn’t do those boys any good. They’re moments away from abandoning everything and letting the little pests get their way again.

This is how every day starts. Though not always with pitiful intercourse.

Then the letterbox slams shut downstairs and the mail crashes to the doormat. Two utility bills they won’t worry about, a pizza delivery leaflet, a free catalogue that arrives every month from a website that was only ever visited once, a card from the local estate agents showing which houses have been selling in the area, requesting to give them a valuation on their property, and one final letter addressed to both lovers.

It uses their names. Not their numbers. Not their job. Not their archetype. Not their clearest personality trait.

It’s their time.

Congratulations. You have been chosen. Your membership request has been accepted.

And they are still just hard and wet enough to continue when both children innocently race out of the door to collect the benign bills and junk mail and death sentence. The bed squeaks ferociously for another twenty seconds or so to mark the last moments of their frigid ceremony, their attempted intimacy.

They are both empty and unfulfilled when the two boys come skidding back into their lie with a plastic-wrapped furniture brochure and innocuous white envelope. They’re sitting up now. The boys make paper aeroplanes from unwanted flyers.

The lovers are shocked at the size of the bills they won’t have to pay. They don’t yet realise that gas usage and interest accrued means nothing to those who are chosen.

In the final envelope are two pages. Reading a few words ignites them into action. Both of them slipping out from under the sheets, both throwing on something to cover their modesty, both exiting the bedroom, descending the stairs with two contented children in tow, the furniture publication left resting on the quilt, both walking barefoot on the cold kitchen tiles and both standing in front of the stove, ignoring the children who are pulling at them from behind.

He holds down the button to produce a string of sparks and turns the dial that releases the gas they won’t have to pay for. Once the hob is fired up, she places the letter and envelope into the flames and they both wait, staring until it is flaking, brittle carbon, incinerating the evidence.

As they discussed.

As was agreed.

As the others will be doing right now.

What a team.

And they crouch down to be at the same level as the boys – it’s easier to think that they’ll be better off without them. And they kiss their children. And they tell them that they love them.