Karl is standing in the doorway between the hallway and the kitchen. Instead of going up to his wife and wrapping his arms around her, he has instinctively stopped and started to take off his scarf instead. Something about Ingrid’s back is worrisome. Maybe that’s it, actually, that she hasn’t even turned around even though she must have heard him stomping the snow off his boots on the front steps and then felt the cold gust of air when he opened the door. One look at his wife’s rigid back made him stop on the threshold to the warm kitchen like a tramp. No, this is not going to be the calm, loving evening in the warm embrace of his family Karl Björken had envisioned.

He lingers in the doorway, scarf in hand, searching for the right words. He briefly considers saying something like ‘Hi, love, it’s good to see you, too’, but he can sense that wouldn’t be well received.

‘What are you talking about?’ he says instead in a weary voice, deciding to try to play the martyr. ‘I’ve just come home after an extremely tough . . .’

He trails off when he hears how half-hearted he sounds. Ingrid is staring at the puddle of melted snow spreading from his boots. Karen drove him all the way to the roundabout, but the short walk from there to the house was enough to cover his hat and shoulders in a layer of white and pack snow into the deep tracks of his boots.

‘Did you mean what you said?’ Ingrid asks again. ‘Tell me you at least meant it when you said it. That you were going to stay home with the kids until we could sort out a childcare solution. That I would be able to go back to work. It’s important for me to know.’

He doesn’t ask why it’s important for her to know. They’ve had this conversation before and he remembers it almost verbatim.

*

You have to do your share this time, promise you will.

That’s what Ingrid had said after finding out she was pregnant again, less than two years after their twins, Arne and Frode, were born. They hadn’t planned on having more children, not when they already had two. Not when they’d finally found a childminder who could take them and Ingrid was going to be able to go back to work. It had been a very inconvenient surprise.

But no use crying over spilled milk, a new life was on its way. And he had promised: this time they were going to take full advantage of Doggerland’s recently expanded paternity leave. Ingrid was going to stay home the first ten months, then Karl would take over until their childminder was able to accommodate all three kids. They were going to make it work; they were going to share the burden.