Molly’s jaw had dropped open; she snapped it shut and yelled, ‘What the hell is going on?’ It was a rhetorical question; she could see from looking around that not much was going on at all. There was a pile of clothes on a chair waiting to be ironed. The vacuum cleaner was sitting to one side but by the look of the floor, it had yet to be used.

‘I was having a break,’ Terry said, looking up at her without a trace of guilt. She dropped her cigarette end into her coffee cup and stood.

‘You were smoking.’ And from the smell, Molly guessed it hadn’t been her first.

‘You never said I couldn’t.’

No, Molly hadn’t. She didn’t think she needed to. ‘This isn’t working,’ she said, holding a hand to her head. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll pay you for today but that’s it. I need someone more reliable.’

‘Suits me,’ Terry said, and with a shrug of unconcern, put the mug down on the coffee table. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

Molly looked at the pile of ironing with a feeling of dread. Maybe she’d been too hasty; who was going to do it? Then she looked at the mug with its disgusting contents, there were some compromises she wasn’t going to make.

The echo of the front door banging behind Terry hadn’t faded when Molly realised how much extra she had to do before the party that night.

With a jolt of panic, she wondered if it were too late to cancel the whole damn thing, plead illness or temporary insanity. She couldn’t, of course, standards to maintain and all that. Her friends teased her about having the perfect family, the perfect life. While she’d always denied it with a smile of forced humility, until recently she had thought her life was pretty much perfect. Until recently.

Something had changed and she couldn’t put her finger on what that was. She and Jack had had little time for each other over the last few months between their busy jobs and the preparations for Freya and Remi’s departure but she’d thought that was understandable, that when it was only the two of them once more, they’d get back some of the intimacy they’d always enjoyed. Instead Jack had become more distant, more wrapped up in his work, working later in the evenings and working some weekends which he’d never done before.

And now, with Rebecca gone, Molly came home every day to a house empty of life, the rooms quiet, echoes of the laughter and voices of her two children almost haunting her.