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batter. She smiles as she puts the little boy on the ground and begins to sweep the leaves. I hear her humming to herself. The little boy watches her with wide eyes. He reaches his arms out to her, and when she is finished, she scoops him up and runs back into the house with him. I can hear their laughter intertwining. Then the door closes and the house is as it was.
    Walking up the steps to the front door, I can see my breath. The rolled-up parcel is no longer on the window ledge. I try to see where Hector is in the house; none of the downstairs lights are on. I slide the key into the lock.
    In the kitchen, I open the fridge door: the mix of colours and the tight squeeze of everything inside make me feel warm. I couldn’t fit anything else in if I tried, but I still like to go to the market at one o’clock every day. It is a habit I can’t seem to break.
    I check the clock.
    Normally, I would be expecting Hector back soon: I would be preparing the dinner. Since our honeymoon, I don’t remember him taking a single day off, or coming home before the usual time.
    I wipe down the kitchen surfaces. That’s ten more minutes gone. Then I check the teapot. The cigarettes are not there.
    The kitchen table is strewn with empty envelopes: Hector must have opened the post. Scooping them into a pile, I open the bin lid to throw them away.
    The cigarette packet is in the bin. Gingerly, I pick it out. It’s damp, the cigarettes inside soaked through: they’ve been run under the tap. A couple have avoided the water. I slide them out and put the packet back where I found it.
    Slowly, I walk through the kitchen and up the stairs, looking down the long dark corridor towards Hector’s study, listening for him. There’s a bar of light under the door: a shadow moves across it. I walk to our bedroom, leaning down on my side of the bed and sliding the two dry cigarettes under the mattress, feeling the springs stretch.
    When I pull my hand back out from under the mattress, it won’t come. It’s as if something is holding it there and I can’t get away. My arm is drawn further in; I feel a pain at the tip of my finger and cry out. Then, without warning, I am released and thrown backwards.
    Reaching over, I turn on my bedside light. My index fingernail is torn right down: a line of blood begins to appear.
    I lift the mattress up with both hands and peer underneath it, but there is nothing there. Looking again at my finger, I wonder if I did that to myself and have only just noticed it. All the fingers are bitten, but this is the worst one. I pull myself up, wipe my hands on my trousers, and return to the brightness of the kitchen.
    I run my hands under the warm tap for a long time, dousing them with soap and scrubbing. The water gets hotter and hotter, until my index finger stings at the raw edges, but I hold them there, until they are clean again.

4
    We have lamb casserole for dinner.
After a hard day at work, your husband will want a hearty meal to replenish his spirits.
I fill my biggest saucepan with chunks of steaming brown lamb, carrots, onions and mushrooms, submerged in thick gravy.
    When the casserole is bubbling gently, I pour myself a glass of wine and stand by the patio windows. The sky is dark blue. I can still make out the traces of the washing line, and the thick outline of the hedgerows at the edge of the garden. Beyond that, the mountains loom. My watch reads five thirty-six, and it is already night.
    In the old days, Kylan would eat at five thirty, ravenous from school. I would pile food high on his plate and call him in. Standing here, by the windows, I would ask him about school, and he would chatter away about football and maths and biology and how much homework he had. When he was finished, he would return to the television, leaving his plate for me to clear away.
    Before that, when he was a baby, I would feed him myself. We had an old green high chair with a blue plastic tray that Kylan loved to slap his fat little