“Will you keep the light on?” he asks when I tuck him in.

“Yes,” I say. “And I’ll be right here too. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re a good girl,” he says, tapping my shoulder. “You were always a good girl.” He smiles, and I want to say, “Wait!” Ask him what he means. Why he said that. What it is about me he remembers. Or maybe it’s just something he says. Like the way you say, Fine, when people ask, How are you?

Dad turns on his side and closes his eyes. Within seconds, the sound of his low, gentle snores.

Otherwise the room is quiet.

I unfold the list of hotels the receptionist printed out for me. Pick up my phone. Start again, from the top.

“Do you have a Mary Lennox staying there?”

“Can you put me through to Mary Lennox’s room please?”

“I need to speak to one of your guests. Mary Lennox? Can you check if...”

I find her at the fourth hotel. Mary Lennox. Room number 106.

“Would you like me to connect you?” the receptionist asks.

Now there is no other sound except the ringing of the phone in a hotel room. No sound of traffic from the street below, no sound of guests in the surrounding rooms arguing or laughing or watching the telly.

Just the ringing sound. Through the safety barriers in my head, I see Iris. She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me as if she’s trying to work something out.

As if she’s trying to work me out.

I had thought myself a straightforward type of a person. Somebody that nobody needed to work out.

I was all worked out. There, for everyone to see.

A supportive wife. A stay-at-home mother. A dutiful daughter.

And yet, here I am, none of those things.

I’ve abandoned my husband when he needs me most.

I’ve neglected my children at important junctures in their lives.

I lost my father. And I’ve thought unkind things about him. Resented him. Hated him. Pitied him.

And what of Iris? What thoughts have I thought of Iris?

Of her decision?

I suppose I mostly thought she wouldn’t go through with it.

Why did I think that? It’s like I discarded everything I knew about Iris. Reinvented her. To suit myself. “Hello?”

“Iris? Is that you?”

“Terry?” Her voice sounds thick and sodden. “Yes, it’s... I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, I...” She is crying. Iris Armstrong is crying.

“Please don’t cry, Iris. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”

“No, no,” she manages. “It’s me who should be sorry, I...” She stops talking and I hear her struggling to stop crying, but it’s the kind of crying that is difficult to stop, once you embark on it.

“Listen to me, Iris,” I say. “Put the phone down, go and wash your face with cold water, then stick your head out the window, get some air, and—”

“My window won’t open,” she says.