I’m about to call Jason when my phone pings: Hope you had a good night. Taking the kids to school, he’s sent. There’s no sign-off, no ‘see you soon’. The three kisses he would normally send are obvious by their absence. They’re an expression of love, after all, and he no longer loves me.

But he does – if only he would believe it. I have to make him. I have to make him realise he wants me. I reach to smooth back my hair before I remember it’s no longer there. Short is easier to keep while I live my double life: mother when I’m home, a bad mother now, no longer a wife; and someone the complete opposite of me when I’m not. Will the fragmented sides ever come together, I wonder? Would Jason find that person enticing, exciting?’

‘Hey.’ I feel an arm snake around my waist as I pick up my holdall. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry? It wasn’t that bad, was it?’

I clamp my mind down on the memories – jagged memories, incomplete and broken: a woman’s body going through the motions, somewhere else in her head. ‘Home,’ I say. I unfurl his arm and step away from him, then drag my change of clothes from my bag – clothing more suitable than the ridiculous outfit I was wearing last night. ‘I have to get back to my children.’

‘Children?’ I hear the surprise in his voice.

‘Two,’ I tell him, tugging on my jeans. ‘A girl and a boy, aged eleven and ten.’

‘Blimey, you must have had them young,’ he says. ‘You’re married then?’

‘Yes.’ Pulling my jumper over my head, I turn to face him.

‘Right.’ He smiles a c’est la vie smile and shrugs. And I thank God he appears to be quite reasonable. It could have ended differently. Badly. I didn’t care last night. I truly believed it wouldn’t matter if I ceased to exist. How could I have thought that? However unbearable my life has become, how could I have been so selfish I hadn’t considered my children?

Guilt twisting my stomach, I retrieve my pumps from my bag and push my feet into them. ‘See you around.’ I give him a small smile before I leave. I don’t owe him anything. The room was already paid for. And he owes me nothing; I think he’s aware of that.

He nods and then cocks his head to one side. ‘You look different without the make-up and stuff,’ he observes.

‘Better or worse?’ I ask, curious as to how other men perceive me.

‘Just different,’ he answers.

Yes, I am. Giving him another smile for his tactfulness, I collect my bag and turn for the door. I’m not the woman my husband imagines I am.