Sarah had hired Ron a few months before the twins’ first birthday. She’d had trouble with Linda, the previous nanny, who was always late, and slack in her work, and who had eventually committed a gross error that prompted her immediate firing. One day, Sarah had hurried back home to fetch a file she had forgotten and found nine-month-old Ethan alone in his cot in a deserted house. An hour later, Linda had come back from the market with Simon, totally unconcerned. Caught red-handed, she had explained that she took the twins out separately, on alternate days, because taking them both out together was too difficult. Sarah had fired her on the spot. Pleading crippling sciatica at work, she had spent the next few days interviewing a succession of helps, including Ron. Surprised to find a male candidate, she had discounted him at first – too many stories in the papers. And her two husbands hadn’t exactly distinguished themselves in the art of diaper-changing and bottle-feeding. She doubted another man would fare any better.

Then she remembered her own interview at Johnson & Lockwood, and all that she had had to accomplish, as a woman, in order to make a name for herself there. And so she reconsidered. Ron deserved a chance, like the others. Besides which, he had a great CV and sound references. He had two children of his own. He lived in a nearby neighbourhood. He had all the qualities required for the post. Sarah had given him a two-week trial, during which Ron had proved perfect for the job. He spent hours playing with the kids, his cooking was divine, he did the shopping, the cleaning, the washing, relieved her of every dull and exacting chore. The kids – Hannah, who was five at the time, and the twins – had all taken to him straightaway. Sarah had just left her second husband, the boys’ father, and she felt a man around the house would be a good thing in a single-mom family like hers.

Subconsciously, perhaps, she was ensuring no woman would take her place. And so Ron had become Magic Ron, indispensable in their lives.

When she looked at herself in the mirror, Sarah saw a woman of forty who had it all: three beautiful children, a well-kept house in a smart neighbourhood, a career that was the envy of many. She was the epitome of the women you read about in magazines; smiling, warm, accomplished. Her wound was invisible, almost undetectable. But look beyond her perfect make-up, her designer heels, and there it was.

Like thousands of women across the land, Sarah Cohen was split down the middle.

She was a bomb waiting to explode.

Smita

Badlapur, Uttar Pradesh, India

Come here.

Wash yourself.

Don’t hang about.

Today is the day. You cannot be late.