I’m not tired that evening, my short nap tricking my body into thinking that I am rested, I can carry on. After we eat, Rav and I take the rest of the bottle of wine he and Naomi opened out to the garden and sit by the pond, although I don’t drink more than a mouthful or two. We talk – or rather he talks – about work, the case he’s working on, the kids, whether or not we have time to take Avó out for dinner at the weekend, while I nod and murmur in all the right places, my mind not fully with him. I am still thinking over the snippet of conversation I overhead between Naomi and Rav. They weren’t talking politics – Naomi never talks politics. The fact that she lied about it, the words ‘something just not quite right’ on her lips, makes me think that she could only have been talking about me, about what happened today. A ripple of fear brushes over my skin as I remember the way I felt as I looked down into the baby’s empty cot. I wrap my cardigan tighter around my body, across my swollen, sore breasts and my lumpy stomach, waiting to hear the sound of crying coming from the trees ahead of us, but there is only the rustling of the leaves overhead. Rav doesn’t seem to notice as he finishes the bottle of wine and when we move inside, he falls asleep the moment his head hits the pillow. I lie awake, my head less foggy now as the pain in my ankle returns to a sharp throb. I don’t want to take more medication, instead I lie still, embracing the pain as Rav snores softly next to me.

The baby wakes and I feed him again, on autopilot, not bothering to wake Rav to give the baby the tiny amount of breastmilk I managed to express after dinner. I worry as he drinks, imaging the tiny sips of alcohol in the wine passing from me to him, before shaking my head. It’s been hours, and I barely had more than a mouthful. Sated, I lay him back down and slide out of bed to the window. It’s becoming a tradition now, I feed the baby, then stand at the window and watch, keeping guard, sure that I will see that flash of white slinking between the trees. That I will see a fresh set of bones swinging from the yew tree that stands on the very edge of the garden.