What was Karen doing? She lifted the curtains aside to watch. Karen seemed to be weaving across the lawn, feet bare on the grass, a bottle dangling from her hand. Jodi had seen her this way before. That night. The ball. A burst of anger flared up under Jodi’s solar plexus at the memory. Maybe someone should go out to her, put her to bed. Karen was in her forties now, her son almost grown and gone, and still this was how she acted.

Jodi caught a glimpse of the clock on the bedside table, an irritating red glow in the dark, interrupting her REM cycle. 3.12 a.m. Christ, where was Cal? Passed out, most likely. Jodi made her way on to the landing, and if someone had asked her, she couldn’t have said why. Only that a beat of panic ran down from the base of her skull to her feet. The house was quiet. Ali’s door was ajar and in the gloom she was hunched under the blankets, almost foetal. Bill was in Benji’s room, the door shut. She wondered why Ali would have put him in there, and Karen in the garage. It seemed the wrong way round for some reason. Cassie’s room door was open too and Benji was asleep on the camp bed, trusting and limp in sleep, a child still. Cassie’s bed was empty. Where was she? In her head she was counting everyone. Bill and Ali and Benji asleep. Karen on the lawn. Jake was in Mike’s office over the garage, maybe asleep by now too.

Where was Callum?

Feeling the familiar pressure on her bladder, she went first to the loo, noting the rust around the old pipes. Ali would have chosen the house for the shabby chic appeal, but likely they’d have to remodel at some point. Better to have a modern build. She finished, and washed her hands, looking at her own moon face in the mirror. Not long now. Soon this would be over and she’d have her baby, she could get to the gym and recover the body she’d been working on her whole adult life. It would all be worth it.

Back out on the landing, and still no sign of Callum. She was tempted to let him suffer it, sleep it off wherever he’d fallen, but what if the kids found him the next day? What if he’d taken his trousers off or even wet himself, as had happened a few times? She’d put him to bed more than once, washing his clothes, never mentioning it.