She’d asked him not to go but he’d gone anyway, and it suddenly struck her that over the last year or so, he’d had more business trips than ever before. He used to hate them, would do anything to avoid them, claiming he didn’t want to be apart from her and the boys. I don’t want to miss bath and bedtime with Jamie. I made that mistake with Joshua. Chris would race home from work, eager to play his role as a father. Afterwards, he and Claire would eat and snuggle on the sofa with a glass of wine.

Now it was almost like he couldn’t wait to get away. Claire paused. Was that really true? She jostled with the question in her mind, but sheer exhaustion made her fumble for the answer. The truth was she didn’t know and as her lined face stared back at her, she realised only one thing was certain: she didn’t know anything any more.

*

Claire woke up and felt something stuck to her face. As she lifted her head, she heard the tearing of a page from a novel as it peeled from her cheek, the dried trail of salvia causing her to wipe her mouth. Reading was her latest attempt to help herself sleep. She’d exhausted her TED talks and besides she couldn’t concentrate.

She looked around the room in confusion, trying to work out what time it was. The weak daylight through the curtains suggested it was well past noon and she put a hand out to check her phone on her bedside table. But it wasn’t there. Shit. Where was her phone? She must have left it in the living room. What if someone had called?

She snatched the covers back and swung her legs out of bed to reach the floor. She was surprised to see herself fully dressed. As her sleep-induced fog lifted, she remembered being sat at her dresser earlier that morning before crawling back into bed. Exhaustion must have taken over and with no phone to disturb her, the unconscious hours had crept up.

She could hear Lucy in the kitchen downstairs. Seeing her wristwatch on the dresser, she stood up and checked the time. It was ten past two in the afternoon. She’d been asleep for almost six hours. Not caring how she looked, she left the bedroom and went in search of her phone. She saw it on the kitchen table, her anxiety so high she barely even heard Lucy’s greeting.