You can’t admit that. It would be like admitting that you didn’t want to see your wife near the end. Or that you prayed for her to be taken away from you. You can’t show that your broken heart left you weak and that Dinah following her mother into nothingness has all but killed the man you were. Because you still have to be strong for your other daughter.

Fake it for her, now.

Devalue the passing of the woman you once loved so completely.

You could have shown how much you cared for your daughter by explaining that you had sought out some grief counselling for her. Because you didn’t want her to end up like you. Tell the police how far she had come, how well she had been doing, how much she had progressed with her outlook and her breathing exercises and her mindfulness.

Let them know his name. Clear your conscience a little. And allow them to do their job.

‘Yes, he was very good. Dr Rossi.’

How difficult was that?

But you don’t say any of that.

So you let your wife die, your daughter die and twenty strangers die.

This is what happens when people are given a choice.

93

How about the outright lie?

You watch the detective make a note in his pad when you tell them that your son was a bit of a loner.

‘He wasn’t weird or unsociable,’ you go on. ‘He just liked his own company. He wrote poetry, you see. It’s something of a solitary profession.’ And you smile. Like you’re proud of the man he never became.

They ask whether he wrote professionally and you have to say no. And it hurts you because you know what it meant to him, and it scathes a little more because your husband is silently pleased with himself for being right about the kid all along. And part of you wishes that he was the one to have jumped; it could have been your way out.

You can’t even remember how you got into this or why you ever loved him. Why can’t he show some emotion? Why won’t he shed a tear for his son? How does he go on like nothing happened?

Then you feel as though you let your son down by hanging on to him so long. You know why you did it. You were selfish. You couldn’t imagine being alone with that man for the rest of your life.

But now that’s exactly what has happened, and you have no son. So you are trying to preserve your dignity as much as possible. You’re trying to make your boy sound creative and passionate and driven, but the police see him as lonely and awkward and maybe even depressed.

They look around at the dated decor of your lounge and see your husband fidgeting with his newspaper that he is just dying to get back to. And they make another note in their pad. And they look at one another as though they know something you do not.