I tried to lift my spirits on the ride home from work – the university job, I hadn’t got it. From the front door I could hear Sophie and Oliver laughing in the backyard.

I hadn’t asked Sarah much about her time in the rain with Jack, even though I wanted her to tell me everything. She’d nodded and smiled when I said things like ‘So you enjoyed it?’ but hadn’t elaborated. The vomiting part, she’d said, must have been the egg salad we’d all eaten at lunchtime.

Or, as Zac had told me the previous evening, because she’d been deepthroated in a dark, empty car park. Jack had taken Sarah from his car, told her to make him hard with her mouth, fucked her throat in the rain, her knees on the wet tarmac, gripping her hair, smacking her face, making her chunder several times. My breathing, my fucking heart, was Zac trying to … ‘Thing is, she actually enjoyed it, dude, she was really into it – you can’t tell her I’ve told you.’

The kids smiled when I strolled into the backyard.

‘Daddy, look,’ Sophie said.

Zac had his hands on her waist, was moving her hips from behind, laughing. He let go, Sophie took her hands from the hula hoop, gyrated, and the hoop, the hoop … It hit the deck.

‘Aw,’ she said. ‘Another shot.’

‘No, my turn,’ Oliver said.

‘Calm down, darling,’ Sarah said. ‘You can both have a go.’

Sarah’s hoops – I hadn’t seen them for years.

She’d taken soup and pasta round to Biddy’s the previous evening while Zac filled me in on Jack, comforting and holding her while she cried. This morning, she’d gone round again. Sarah was there for Biddy, for me, in ways I was finding difficult to deal with.

‘Try it now.’ Zac’s hands were on Oliver’s hips, his fingers on the waistband of his shorts, Oliver’s gangly legs already gyrating.

‘OK, let go,’ Oliver said. One spin, two – the hula hoop was on the ground. ‘Aw.’

‘You guys are amazing,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know you could do that.’

‘Zac taught us,’ Sophie said.

‘And who else?’ Sarah said.

‘And Mummy,’ she said. ‘Mostly Mummy.’

‘Maestra?’ Zac said, holding the hoop in Sarah’s direction. ‘I’m sure Chris wants to see it.’

‘He’s seen it all before,’ she said, looking at me, winking. ‘We’ve had quite the afternoon.’

‘Why don’t you tell Daddy the new phrase I taught you?’ Zac said, bending down, holding Sophie’s shoulders from behind, his thumbs on her neck.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘She’s too dumb,’ Oliver said.

‘That’s not very nice,’ Zac said. He stroked Sophie’s hair, bunched it in his hand. ‘I’m sure you remember it, Sophie, don’t you?’

‘She’s an idiot,’ Oliver said.