‘I guess,’ Mia said. ‘I don’t know. Gran said I could ask God to bring Dad home. Can God really read people’s minds?’

‘Your grandma believes he can.’

‘If God can read my mind, I’m worried he might not bring Dad home.’

‘What makes you say that, monkey?’

She shrugged. ‘Sometimes I have bad thoughts.’

‘We all do,’ Kate said. ‘We can’t have good thoughts all the time. That’s not how people work.’

She studied her fingernails. ‘Sometimes I have bad thoughts about God.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, for starters, how did Noah fit so many animals on the ark? And if rain filled up the planet then that would mean it was fresh water, so how did the saltwater fish survive? And where did all the water go and by the way why did God kill all those Egyptian babies? And what’s with Abraham and—’

‘TMI, monkey.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

TMI (too much information) was an expression used often in their house. If Mia was explaining what part of the pig bacon came from over breakfast, or describing the life cycle of maggots when driving past roadkill, or listing the different modes of execution used to carry out death sentences in America, or a million other disturbing things she somehow found online, TMI stopped her in her tracks.

‘It’s good to be questioning stuff,’ Kate said. ‘I still haven’t really decided where I land with the whole God thing, but you don’t need to be thinking about all that right now.’

‘But I can’t help it, and if God is real and he can read my thoughts, then he knows I’m thinking all that, and if he knows I’m thinking all that, maybe he won’t bring Dad home.’

‘If God is real, he understands. And if he isn’t, your dad is still coming home, Mia.’

‘How do you know?’

Because I won’t survive without him, Kate thought.

‘Because he has you to come home to,’ she said.

A hint of colour returned to Mia’s face. She folded against Kate, who drew her close, feeling the warmth of Mia’s small body against her own, and wanting badly to cry.

Around three am, Kate climbed into her big empty bed, pulled herself into a tight ball beneath the covers and told herself John was coming home. He would come home, and he would warm the cold side of the bed, and she would wake in his arms.