I did feel terrible, at that moment, even though Thomas’s cut looked nearly healed already, his face glowing from playing musical bumps. He had eaten particularly well at the picnic, telling everyone loudly that he was a vegetarian, then eating five cheese sandwiches and a pile of raw vegetables. I told Sarah this, to make up for the injury. I was a good mother! I had chopped fucking carrots!

Sarah’s face didn’t change: she still looked at me as though she was my teacher, an infinitely more mature and discerning person. All of which was true. I had to say it.

Well, actually, he punched Paddy in the nose, so . . .

Her mouth pursed and I squirmed, tried to make light of it all. Boys, eh? – I couldn’t stand it when people said this. It made me feel like screaming, like tearing my eyelashes out. And here I was, saying it.

Sarah raised her eyebrows. Well, thanks for the party. Come on, Tommy.

I held out Tommy’s party bag, a final peace offering. The plastic was visibly heavy, well stocked, with tiny cartoon pirates climbing desperately up its sides. I could see Sarah pausing, but her son had already snatched the bag and begun to march out of the door, swinging it by its handle, humming quietly to himself. The other children left soon afterwards, a storm blowing through as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the house with a wrung-­out quality, a palpable, damp atmosphere of relief. The four of us collapsed in the living room, the boys rooting in their goodies listlessly, Jake and I sighing, opening and closing our eyes.

He was sitting so close to me: suddenly, it seemed normal to do this, to rest on his shoulder, to let my head fall gently against him. Jake leaned down and kissed the top of my head, briefly, my body still, not even flinching in response.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Ted watching silently, chewing a sweet, dribble beginning to appear at the side of his mouth. Paddy looked up too, after a moment, his attention briefly shifted from his party bag. I kept still, kept our bodies together, let the boys see us like this. Happy.

And maybe it could be real, this whole thing only a blip, something we’d talk about late at night, eventually, our words like dough stretching the past into different shapes, the darkness of our room making it all seem credible, necessary.

We would stop here, just as we had not conceived a third child, had realized in time that it would be a mistake. I put my head against Jake’s chest, his heart a bumping road beneath my ear, a fractured process, contraction and relaxation, electric impulses that could stop at any time.