Squirrel-eyed, Dominic glanced up warily. “Yeah, she’s fine.”

“Really?”

There followed a split second in which understanding suggested itself. The boy’s expression changed, staring at her quizzically (gratefully?), and Veronica wondered if ‘fine’ might be about to be qualified, if her concerns might be confirmed. She held her breath. But the next second Dominic turned away with a muttered, “Yeah, ’course”. And, surprising herself, Veronica audibly exhaled.

The relief was unexpected but it came with a surge of validation. They’d been right not to do more. The woman was fine, her son had said so. And here he was, picking something up for her, looking after her. They must be close. Veronica instantly romanticised an idea about an unbreakable bond between them – in the face of adversity, mother and son, always having each other. Once authorities get involved in domestics, who knows what could happen to that. Yes, she and George had been right not to interfere.

“And your dad?” Veronica continued, much more breezily.

“He’s not my dad.”

“Sorry, yes, you did tell me that. Where is your dad?”

It was an entirely inappropriate question. Veronica hardly knew this boy, only what she had heard through the wall, only what she had judged from the doorstep; but on the gentle gust of relief, she felt suddenly an irresistible compulsion to probe further, to help him.

This feeling was not unique to Dominic. It had been a pattern of Veronica’s throughout her life, a conscious strategy even: digging, embroiling, analysing, fixing. Her first ‘project’ had been a girl at school who suffered night terrors. Then at university there was a devout Christian girl who needed help coming out to her parents. Dominic was merely another. It wasn’t altruism. Veronica knew this. The reason was far more self-serving: it was simply easier to fix others than to acknowledge fractures of her own. But the motive was irrelevant. The result was good, helpful. Besides, it worked. It distracted her from herself. It gave her that crucial sense of control and confidence, just enough to stop her, untethered in her own life, from spinning out of reach.

She was untethered now. Each morning that week, she had felt the seeds of resentment taking firmer root, and she was barely able to look at Amelia – the manifestation of everything she didn’t have. She longed to tear something down. Longed for it. She could feel that longing rising, self-sabotaging and untameable. But, here was Dominic. Offering her a chance at distraction.

“My dad’s not around,” answered Dominic, looking at Veronica now with something between curiosity and suspicion. “He died when I was four.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“S’okay. I did it.”

“What?”

Dominic had now reached the front of the queue and he didn’t answer. Instead she noticed him lower his voice a little as he asked the lady at the counter for Rizla papers. The lady lifted an eyebrow. “Are you eighteen?” she asked him loudly, looking downwards at his scrawny frame.

“It’s only the papers, not tobacco,” he answered with surprising boldness. “Where I usually go, they never care. You don’t have to be eighteen for the papers.”