‘Sure,’ she says. ‘In a bit.’

She goes downstairs to make a herbal tea. She can never understand how people can go to bed when their children are out somewhere. She’ll wait as long as it takes. Both phases of parenthood – the new-born years and the almost-adult ones – bookended by sleep deprivation. Jen drinks two cups of strawberry tea that taste of boiling water. She scrolls idly on her phone, just waiting. Doing nothing except waiting.

Back at the window, at almost two, she stares out into the October mist, wondering how late is so late that she should call.

But there he is, outside on the street, at last. Jen sees him just as Daylight Saving Time kicks in, and her phone switches from 01:59 to 01:00. She can’t hide a smile: thanks to the clocks going back, he is deliberately no longer late. That’s Todd for you; he finds the linguistic and semantic backflipping of arguing a curfew more important than the reason for it.

There he is, her boy so full of intellect that it has left no room for common sense, loping up the street, coming home. He’s skin and bones, doesn’t eat enough, consumes science and maths more than food. His knees poke angles in his jeans as he walks, a praying mantis.

But – wait. He isn’t alone. He’s meeting somebody. Is he? A hooded figure is making its way up the street from the other end. She watches her son and the stranger walking towards each other.

She shouldn’t be looking. The lines of parenthood have become blurred in recent years. Bathroom doors now locked, phone screens shielded from view. This interaction is Todd’s, as an adult. He doesn’t know she can see from up here at her window. She should step back, but she doesn’t. The same instinct that makes her wait up for him keeps her here, tethered to the window with her eyes. She places a hot palm on the cold glass, still waiting.

The mist outside is colourless, the trees and pavement black, the air a translucent white. A world in greyscale. Jen knows the last of the leaves clinging on to the trees are an ochre colour, but she can’t see them. Their street – the backend of Crosby, Merseyside – is unlit. Kelly installed a lamp outside their house, a Narnia lamp, and it clicks on as it detects their movement, illuminating the tops of their heads.

Todd has on black jeans, too-white trainers – huge feet – and a dark jacket with fur around the hood. He’s reaching towards the other person, who, as he approaches the pavement outside Jen’s house, she sees is actually a man; a grown adult, at least forty.

Something about their body language is off. Jen realizes something is about to happen without being able to name what it is; the same way she feels around fireworks and level crossings and cliff edges.

She sets the cup on the windowsill, next to the pumpkin, and takes the stairs two at a time, the striped stair runner rough on her bare feet. She shoves on shoes, then throws on a coat, and pauses for a second with her hand on the front door knob.