Past more cameras and queues and security checks. Past dingy grey offices and overweight men with guns holstered at their sides, I was shown through to Caleb’s cell. Painted the pale yellow of overcooked eggs or urine, its only furniture was a steel toilet bowl lurking in the corner, with no seat or lid.

‘Caleb. Your mother’s here.’

My boy sat on the floor, clutching his knees. His eyes were ringed in pink. His hair had grown since the day of the fire. A clear tidal mark split the fading black of his goth days from his own brown roots.

Trapped in a new world, he was small and exposed. My heart thumped, remembering again: my son. He stood. I hugged him. He let me. Another thump.

I had so many questions. Was he okay? Was he hungry? Hot? Cold? (Sad, I couldn’t ask, I knew.) Caleb nodded and shook his head as required but with a little less enthusiasm each time. My mothering caused his attention to fade completely. Eventually, he pointed at a tiny camera blinking its red eye from the corner. ‘Do you think I’m on suicide watch?’

‘Oh! Caleb!’

‘They’re saying I’ll be locked up for twenty-five years.’

I imagined a succession of Calebs there. Caleb at twenty-five, at thirty, at thirty-five, at forty. Sitting in a cell. Furiously, I blinked the images away. They couldn’t be his future. I wouldn’t allow it.

‘I’m not suicidal. I want pencils,’ he said. ‘Will they let me have them? And paper to draw on.’ One of his teeth was chipped. Newly?

‘Follow me, please,’ said a uniformed guard from the door.

We followed the guard down a urine-coloured hall. ‘They’ll be questioning Penelope,’ I said. ‘I imagine she’ll tell them about her day. Your day.’

He ran his fingers over the stubble on his chin, his baby chin that shouldn’t have stubble. ‘She doesn’t know everything.’

‘I think she believes in you, Caleb.’

He nodded, slowly, and lowered his eyes. ‘Can you get me that paper?’

Once, he swam inside me. I had pushed him out.

Oblivious to the despair rocking through me, the guard ushered us into the visitors’ room. Stephen already sat at a chipboard table. He squirmed as we entered, although perhaps he’d met clients in custody before. And he ran fingers (manicured – he never had manicures when married to me) through his carefully streaked (ditto) hair. Metal chair legs screeched against the tiled floor as I sat next to him.

Caleb leered at us from across the table. ‘Isn’t this great? Just like happy families.’

‘Don’t be like that, Caleb, mate,’ Stephen said.

‘Mate?’ Caleb repeated.

‘So, how are you going?’ Stephen asked.

‘You’re asking how I am, now?’ Caleb demanded. ‘I don’t need you now. You missed the moment when I needed you.’

‘I care about you.’

‘Do you care enough to answer a question?’