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There is a bad day ahead. No avoiding it. When the ship comes for us, she is going to know the truth. I don’t know what it will do to her or make of us, but I understand what it means to lose someone suddenly, I know how words unspoken can be a poison within, so if I am to lose someone slowly I will make sure there is nothing unsaid.

I do not want to leave this place, but I would do it for you, I would do it with you, if that is something you might want.

She has her own words that must be said.

“I don’t want children, Dom.”

And I come with three and so that is that.

I remember a morning, one of many that all bleed together in my mind. A morning I rose, shattered by grief and weariness, stumbling into our living room in the city. I remember wondering why I could hear no crying, no morning calls for a bottle, and then seeing my son on his back in a shaft of sunlight, with the small lean bodies of my older children laid around him, I remember their fingers tickling his belly and his smile, his first smile. They looked up at me with such awe, such delight. A smile, Dad! He’s smiling! And I thought, this is why we survive.