I’m a cliché, a needy girlfriend. She thinks I’m an idiot, a time-waster; either I’ve forgotten he’s told me he’d be staying out, or he’s playing away.

I shut Toffee in the kitchen, then sit on the bottom stair and watch the door until I grow cold, then I give up and go to bed. I drift off, waking at regular intervals, reaching for my phone, checking for messages.

Birds are singing, the morning light is a pale shimmer at the edges of the curtains. I open my eyes, forgetting, then touch the emptiness beside me, the smooth, cold pillow, the cool sheet. He hasn’t come home.

GRACE

Thursday, 12 April 2018 Two Days Earlier

‘GOD DAMN IT. WE’RE OUT OF MILK.’ I CLOSE THE FRIDGE and cast around for my keys. ‘I’ll nip out to the shops. Can you finish the peeling?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll go.’

‘But you’ve only just got in.’

Nick scoops up the dog, averting his face as Toffee tries desperately to lick him. ‘No problem. I need to get some more steps in. You want to go out too, don’t you, boy? Yes you do!’

I laugh. ‘Put him down, you’ll get hairs all over your suit.’

He leaves, Toffee beating him to the door, wild with excitement, I go back to the potatoes and Lottie makes a start on her homework. Not that she appears to be tackling it with much enthusiasm. A maths book is open page-side down on the table while my ten-year-old daughter’s fingers fly across her phone, her head bent, fine brown hair falling forward.

‘Who’re you talking to?’ I ask.

No response.

‘Lottie.’ I pause. ‘I’ve decided to get a tattoo.’ No reply. ‘On my forehead?’

‘Oh, Mum. Shh.’

‘I thought you were doing your homework.’

‘I’m having a break.’

‘Your life is a series of breaks.’

‘Ha ha.’

I cut myself a triangle of Cheddar to nibble. The mince is simmering in the oven, the sun is dropping, and I feel chilled and content. I reach for my phone, as bad as my daughter, and tap the In-Step app. Six thousand seven hundred and thirty-four steps today. Two hundred and ten calories burned. Almost four kilometres walked. Not as much as I’d like to have achieved, but not bad; better than Cassie or Mara. My avatar on the app is a dog; Nick’s is a bird.

I watch Nick’s numbers rising; two thousand four hundred and fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six. I help myself to another wedge of cheese. He stops, and I wrinkle my nose, imagining him waiting while Toffee has a pee, then they’re off again.