11.40 pm

Ruth eyes herself in the mirror, shifting her weight to one leg, so she only sees half of her face, that’s better. It is just as well, she thinks, that you can’t see yourself when you’re crying because you’d only cry harder. Ruth has the feeling she gets after fights, of being wounded, of having said too much, of wanting to take it all back. And of release, too. I am open now, she thinks.

Love is so unlikely a thing, can you say that you are still in love with someone after all this time, can you love someone after they have hurt you so deeply? Ruth puts toothpaste on a toothbrush with splayed bristles. I will never be a mother, she says to her reflection, but begins brushing before there can be an answer. She is just herself, there’s no one else she can be. She bends and spits into the basin, rinses with water from the tap, looks up again at the mirror. And it is her mother’s voice she hears: ‘Did you think it would all be plain sailing?’

Ruth listens to the click from downstairs, it must be Aidan turning off the hall light. Yes, there are his feet on the stairs. Pass me by, don’t pass me by. She holds her breath as he reaches the bathroom door, but he turns on the half-landing, goes up the next flight, into their bedroom, and she hears another click. The bedside light. Ruth pictures him looking at their room, his still-packed case leaning against the chest of drawers, the unmade bed. There, the rasp of the curtains being pulled. Ruth flicks off the light and shuts the bathroom door softly. Hesitates on the landing. She will not join him just yet.

Through the box-room window, she sees the street lamp’s yellow glow refracted through the tree, a pattern of light and dark. Opposite, she sees the roof of the park keeper’s cottage, the mesh of the tennis-court fence, hedges and parked cars. The road has a sheen to it as if it had rained while they were arguing, drowning, saving themselves.

There is a clatter on the stairs, but it is not their house, it is one of the children next door, up late, or perhaps a parent hurrying up the stairs to check on them.

Ruth could have walked away, she still could. But every time she has heard her own voice today, reverberating in her mind – run, stay – she has stayed, has advanced, has chosen dependence after all.

There is another noise from the bedroom, but still Ruth hesitates. She needs one more minute. One more minute to look out the window, to see the way the shadows fall on the street outside. One more minute to contemplate all the shadows that fall inside the house too. One more minute to just be.

And when that minute is up, she will go in to him. She will go to her husband, and she will put her hand on his chest, skin to skin. And if he does not shrink from her, if he looks at her, or touches her back, then she will lean in to him and say, I know what I want. Let’s be us again.