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“You’re a brilliant mum. A fantastic lawyer and a superb businesswoman. You manage to work, and you make good decisions. Right now, you’re making very good decisions. We as parents are.”

“Oh shut up, Dylan.”

“I’m sorry about Brandon.”

“You’re not sorry. And you’re probably all laughing at me, thinking I’ve been caught in your childish trap. Gun Larsen can go to hell for all I care. She and her big words and sneaky threats. She did this. And I’m warning you, Dylan—”

“The children are fine. They’re tired, which is understandable, but have had a very good day. We’re all fine.”

She snorted. “The antidepressants must be working, if you’ve even made the professionals agree that you’re sane.”

Another not-so-subtle dig, but this was Veronica. And were the antidepressants working? I took them, like clockwork. I got out of bed in the morning, and I was working. Well, Jean was working. I was just doing her bidding, trying to function the best I could.

Perhaps they were working, those little pills, because I felt like I was functioning…quite well.

“I’ll never forgive you if you put my children at risk,” she finished off while I quietly seethed.Don’t say anything. Keep quiet. Listen and just bloody keep quiet.I felt like I had Gun Larsen whispering in my ear.

“Veronica, I will update you tomorrow. We’re a team here.”

We weren’t, but whatever. We had to be. Somehow.

Then I hung up. And it felt…good. Like I was finally in some kind of control, sitting on a bare mattress, staring at the door to the nursery.

I had no idea what I’d been thinking. A heavy cot sat in the corner of the darkened room. A nursery? Depressing. Awful. How anyone thought that someone wouldn’t go mad living in a place like this starkly bare room with its muted colours. At least it was clean, having been hoovered and dusted down.

Stewart had done well. I hadn’t lifted a finger while he’d swept through here like the efficient superhuman he was. I should have done more. Done something.

I did now, dragging the cot through the doorway, ripping my stupid tie off as I got the cot stuck on the corner of the doorframe.

I needed to find the toddler bed. Perhaps it was still in the loft. Garage? For now, my small boy would sleep next to me, where he could see me if he woke up and was frightened. He would share space with another human being, despite all Veronica’s ideas about self-soothing and finding independence within your own four walls.

Well, fuck that. I was having none of it. Off went my jacket as I went in search of a pillow. He was big enough to need a pillow and some comfortable blankets. Warmth.

“You okay?”

Here he was. The man who made my shoulders drop, standing in the walk-in closet in the hallway, ripping through bags of stuff.

“Bedding,” I said, waiting for my body to find that groove where I became calm and let him scoop me up in his arms and hold me so tight I could barely breathe.

In the closet. The very thought of that made me giggle. Stupid, but…anyway.

“I’m okay,” I said. “But I think Constance is right. This set-up doesn’t work anymore. Phinney is too big for a cot, but I have nowhere else to put him.”

“He’s fine. Last time I saw him, he was running around on the floor with one of your shoes.”

“What?”

“He’s calm and not screaming. And he ate the carrots I cut up raw.”

“Carrots?”

“Carrots are a win. However they come.”

“Okay.” I had no idea. It was hard to think clearly standing here with my face buried in his chest.

“I take it all back,” I said quietly. “All the stuff about you staying away and giving me time to bond with the kids again. I need help. I need all the bloody help.”

“And I will give it to you. I love that I can be here…and look after you.”