I shake my head, not wanting to go through it all again. In the excitement of finding the mirror, I had pushed it out of my head, and I don’t want to think about it now. ‘I just worry I suppose … It felt so real, as if I was really there, and I woke up wondering what on earth I had done.’ Only I hadn’t woken up the night before, had I? Rav had told me that my eyes were open, that I was awake. ‘You’re right, it’s probably just hormones racing around, you know how it is.’ Immediately I want to bite my tongue. Because Naomi doesn’t know how it is. That’s part of the reason why she and Jason separated. Naomi can’t have children, and after several miscarriages, and then complications, which led to the doctors telling Naomi children would never be possible, Jason left her.

Naomi says nothing for a moment, and I open my mouth to apologize but she speaks before I can say anything. ‘I think maybe you’re overtired. Shall I take Leo for a bit and you go and have a lie down?’

‘I’ll be fine, honestly. You don’t need to …’ I protest, but Naomi is already leaning over where the baby sleeps. She gently lifts him from the Moses basket in the corner of the kitchen and tucks him into the crook of her arm, murmuring softly under her breath. I let her take him, guilty relief washing over me and head up the stairs to the bedroom.

Jolting awake with a gasp, my eyes go to my phone on the bedside table and I lift it, lighting the screen. Four o’clock. I’ve been asleep for almost three hours. I strain my ears but can’t hear either of the children, just the muted sounds of the television. Shit. I push my way out of the duvet, getting to my feet so quickly that for a moment I feel dizzy, light-headed, and I have to take a deep breath, holding on to the bedside table.

‘Mina? Naomi?’ I call out softly, anxious that the baby will be asleep and my shouts will wake him. There is no response, so I run down the stairs, suddenly sure that I will get downstairs and the house will be empty, the children will be gone. As my feet thud on the stair risers, an image appears in my mind of a chair overturned, cups and plates left covered in crumbs and remnants of tea on the table, the back door swinging open in the breeze. A domestic Marie Celeste. A chilly breeze strokes my legs with icy fingers as I step off the bottom stair, and I peer into the sitting room. The room is empty, Mina’s toys scattered across the floor, the television playing to itself.