He always paused his life for me when it came to our son. I don’t know what she thought, but it felt like he was still prepared to suffer with me. ‘I don’t want to interfere with your day.’

‘It’s just food shopping, Lese – I’ve got a minute. I’ve been meaning to ring you anyway.’

I still loved it when he called me Lese – it made me feel that I belonged to him. I told him what had happened.

‘Well . . . this is good, isn’t it?’ he answered, not sounding surprised at all. How was it that I’d been blindsided, but he thought it was all perfectly to be expected? ‘We always wanted him to come back for Jack and to face up to his adult responsibilities.’

That was true, I knew it was, but it just felt abrupt. ‘Is he going to do a good job though? Jack’s so young.’

‘I checked again recently, he still hasn’t got a criminal record – he’s never done anything wrong. It’s possible that he –’ I could hear the shrug in his voice – ‘just finally grew out of being a shit.’

It felt good to hear Nick’s levity. It made me feel that I was in it with someone; that I wasn’t alone. Then he said the perfect thing as usual. ‘Lese, I know you’ll get Jack back. Jack just wants another try at being a dad. He’s older now and—’

I heard his wife calling him.

‘You go, Nick. You’ve got stuff to do. I feel better; I can wait it out until tomorrow.’

‘Anne-Marie can wait a sec. I just wanted you to know—’

I heard her calling him again, louder this time. ‘Honestly, Nick, I get it. I’m not alone. I geddit.’

I geddit was something I used to say to him a lot when he would over-emphasise a point. He laughed at the memory – I did too. I promised to call again on Sunday and hung up.

Hearing that Nick thought it was a good idea made me feel a little better. I tried to be productive and tidy the flat, to get on with jobs that needed doing, like cleaning the grout in the bathroom.

As I scrubbed, I thought about Nick. I thought about how I missed him, how, despite being married to Anne-Marie for years, he still felt like my husband.