I stared into his face, hoping to see what I was looking for: guilt, shame, the dismal music of a future darkened by his mistake, an eternal repentance. I breathed hard, said nothing as I looked. I had often wondered how many times you have to look at a face for it to become truly familiar; Jake’s still eluded me, still had new angles to present, lost corners, inches that could not be memorized. I still couldn’t see him, not really.

He looked down.

I’m sorry. I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ve done it. I’ve told her . . .

He still had my hands between his; I could feel the heat of his palms against the inside of my wrists, the veined part, the arm joining the hand just as he joined words together, put her name in his mouth, next to his teeth, his mouth that had been on hers, his tongue . . .

I creased up my face in a way I knew must have looked repulsive, my eyebrows lowering to my cheeks, my mouth drooping, collapsing. I let words come out.

It’s disgusting. You disgust me.

I’m sorry. I mean it. I really am.

He was almost whining now, a curdled kind of sound. I could feel saliva building in my cheeks, tingling and rising to the surface, nausea starting up again. I thought of spitting in his face. Jake was breathing fast, his eyes clouded. Maybe, I thought, he wants me to do it. He wants to have to reach up and wipe me from his cheeks, off the lenses of his glasses. He wants to be in the right, even if only for a second. But just as I moved my mouth, he dropped my wrists, turned his head towards a noise.

I will never get a precise measurement of it: the exact length of time that Paddy – in his spaceship pyjamas, holding his old toy dog – stood on the stairs, listening to us, maybe even seeing us, seeing his father holding his mother back by the wrists. I only know what we did, once we knew, the way we became his parents, actors switching out of their roles, instantly, as though at a fire alarm, someone collapsed in the audience. I felt immediately sober, my dress too tight, the sourness of wine coating my teeth.

Why do you smell funny? Paddy asked, as we tucked him back in.

Why are you wearing that? He ran his fingers over the diamanté shape, stroked the black smoothness in the middle, his eyes heavy, fluttering. He was barely awake. Maybe in the morning, he would think it was all a dream.