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I didn’t notice him at first because I was too bewildered when I woke up.

It was just before seven, and I’d slept a solid six hours.

The last time I’d slept that long… I couldn’t even remember.

But I got up and forced myself into the shower before digging out another shirt and trying to button it up as I almost tripped over my own feet, realising Stewart was still on the chair, fast asleep with his phone in his hand.

Fuck me sideways .

“Stewart?” I called out, a sudden panic shooting through me that he’d died in the night and I was now sharing space with a corpse. Obviously not, as he stretched and yawned, seemingly not concerned that he was still here and that I was standing here just wearing an open shirt like an idiot.

“Morning,” he grunted. “Seems I fell asleep. Did you sleep well?”

“Six hours. Jean will be here in a bit. I need to get going. Tidy up and all that and pretend I know what I’m doing.”

He’d already got up and made his way to the bathroom while I stood there feeling the total embarrassment spread from my cheeks right down to my toes. What on earth was I playing at, asking my neighbour to babysit me? Also… There had been a hug.

That part was now making me want to flee out those patio doors and never return. Jump the back wall and run screaming across the train tracks, hurling myself in front of the express train thundering past.

We were situated at the back of Marylebone Station. Trains were as much part of this house as birdsong and the sound of laughter. And now silence. The goddamn silence .

“It’s always easier to rest when someone else is in the house. I find that too. I can’t sleep because I can’t hear the kids upstairs,” he said, reappearing behind me.

Talk about insensitive and triggering. I shuddered, but he just stood there and looked at me.

“You have to figure out how to deal with hearing me talk about my family. Just like you have to learn to talk about yours. They are alive and well, and you have to remember that.”

“They don’t feel like it. It feels like I’m grieving, constantly, with nothing to show for everything I’ve lost.”

Talking like a pathetic plonker again. I knew I had to snap out of this. I had spent the past weeks listening to Jean repeatedly tell me as much, and I was frighteningly starting to see it. The way I behaved. How I’d given up not only on myself but perhaps on everything. Life. This place.

“I’ll make us tea,” I stuttered out, fleeing upstairs before I burst into tears.

Damn it. Get it together.

I listened to him leaving through the patio doors, then, as I sat there staring pathetically at the two cold cups in front of me, I wondered if he’d finally given up on me or if he would return. Well, he did return, again with his signature teacups.

“This is getting silly.” He laughed, looking at the four cups in front of us. “But I like silly. I like that we have a brew together.”

“Like normal people.”

“Like those builders on that site yesterday.”

“They were so clueless; they didn’t even understand the documents I was shoving under their nose. All that investment and no idea.” I sounded like Jean.

“But that is where you build,” he said. “They were grateful. I could see the relief in them just from watching you shake their hands. The way they were grasping at those folders and how you smiled at them. Reassuringly.”

“Their mistakes are easy to fix. The money they’ve wasted less so.”

“But they know better now. And hopefully, they’ll tell their friends about the lawyer who salvaged their first building project and ensured they learnt the ropes.”

“More likely, they’ll laugh about me down the pub, tell all their mates about the skinny useless lawyer who just turned up on site and shoved nonsense at them until they caved in and agreed to pay him money.”

“Positivity, Dylan.”

I didn’t believe in it. Not anymore. And once again, I cringed at myself for freaking out when the doorbell rang.

I’d once handled courtrooms full of people and been called in as an expert witness, talking the talk with confidence and ease. These days, the idea of having to face a delivery guy at my front door made me break out in a panic. Not that I got up to open the door.

“I’m assuming that’s Jean?” Stewart said, getting up and walking out into the hallway, where he yanked the door open, his booming voice echoing a cheery good morning all the way to where I was hiding behind the kitchen counter.

I froze up, the panic on the inside suddenly matching the way my hands shook. I couldn’t even move.

“Good morning,” a voice answered, one that I knew better than I knew myself. “My name is Constance Scotland. I’m looking for my father?”

“You’re Constance?” Stewart asked, all calm and cheerful .

I bit the inside of my mouth, shivering in complete fear. I hoped it bled. What was going on?

“Dylan? Constance is here,” he said, like he was my new, wildly efficient PA, as my sixteen-year-old daughter walked into the kitchen and threw her bag on the kitchen counter like she lived here.

She’d always lived here.

She was taller, longer hair than last time, dressed in jeans and a sweater like any other girl her age, and she was smiling and then laughing as she slowly walked towards me, rounding the counter with tentative steps.

“You’ve got skinny, Dad. Last thing you need. Don’t tell me you’re on that Zepbound stuff? Mommy did it for a couple of months and lost so much weight that she looked weird. Luckily, someone told her, and she put it all back on in a few weeks. Crazy stuff. Anyway.”

She was talking in a weird accent. I didn’t like it. But this was my Constance, and she was here, and I had no idea how to deal with that.

Her arms were around me in a strangely familiar embrace, and I played along even though I could hardly breathe. Sniffing her hair brought back too many memories, and the feeling of being stuck in some kind of twilight zone was overwhelming.

“I assume you need some privacy,” Stewart said, which brought me back to reality in a terrifying realisation.

“Don’t leave,” I pleaded. “I’m officially not allowed anywhere near the children, so I need you as a witness that I was not aware of this visit.”

“I live here, don’t I?” Constance huffed.

“Of course you do,” I managed to say. “What are you doing here?”

“Art trip with school. The rest of my class has a private session at the Wallace Collection. You used to take me there all the time, so I can pretty much recite every piece of art by heart. I thought I’d use the time wisely and come home instead.

I have until ten thirty before anyone will notice I’m missing. ”

“Constance,” I scolded her, but I couldn’t help smiling. She was her mother’s daughter. And mine. “Oh gosh, darling, I’ve missed you,” I said, wrapping her up in another hug. “How are you? How are Marmaduke and Phinneas?”

“How are we?” She rolled her eyes. “We live in a fucking serviced apartment with more staff coming and going than a Target. Phinneas’s nanny is leaving again, and he’ll have an absolute meltdown.

He only speaks Spanish, did you know that?

Even answers me in Spanish now, and it’s so annoying.

Mommy hasn’t been home for weeks, and Brandon keeps turning up in the middle of the night, and I found another woman’s jacket in Mommy’s office. Like, it’s a shitshow, as usual.”

I felt cold. Absolutely cold.

“So your dad’s not allowed to see you, but you’re being raised by nannies in a serviced apartment, and who’s Brandon?”

I was actually grateful that Stewart was here, buffering me from the facts again. I’d become so numb to all this that it was almost like I was hearing it for the first time.

“I want to move back here,” she said, looking straight at me. “I can’t stand Miami. Too hot, too bright, and the fucking palm trees are driving me insane. There’s no culture, no vibe. I’m friends with a bunch of rich trust fund kids who can’t even spell my name.”

“Hmm,” Stewart said. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

I had to laugh. Like that would solve anything.

“Anyway, whilst we’re on the subject of shitshows, who are you?

” She was staring at Stewart with a look I recognised.

“Yes to the tea. Proper stuff. I miss it, can’t get anything like it in Miami.

” My daughter was hardcore, and those absolute feelings of pride were back in my chest, mixed with panic and fear and a sudden realisation that she would shortly be gone again and there was nothing I could do to hold on to her, keep her here, safe and loved and away from all the madness of the world.

“I live next door with my family.” He reached out his hand. “Stewart Schiller. I’ve been helping your dad.”

“Not doing a very good job.” She snorted. “What have you done to the living room? It looks like a storage facility.”

“It kind of is,” I said. “I lost the office, so I’m working from here now. Jean comes and goes. We just took on a new client.”

I made it sound better than it was. It felt like a lie.

“I know you.” Constance was eyeing Stewart suspiciously. “You’re The Reuben’s dad.”

“I am.” He looked proud. I loved that he did. It was an emotion I could connect with, standing here like a bloody mute statue.

“The Reuben?” I questioned .

“The Reuben. Married to The Dieter, Dad. You know? The guy I used to have pictures of all over the walls? Mommy got me an autograph when we ran into him on the drive. I still have it up there. Is it all right if I go upstairs? There are a few things I want to grab, things I miss. Marmie wanted his teddy off his bed. I assume it’s still there?

Mommy left it behind, told him he wasn’t a baby anymore. ”

“He’ll have to hide it, or she’ll throw it out.”

“Like she did with Phinneas’s blankie. He cried for a week while Mommy said we should treat him as an adult. He was, like, two!”