Judith is lying next to me in bed. She undressed in silence, pulled on her short nightdress, and rolled under the covers without even glancing at me. She is holding it together. I understand. Everything is too much right now. Elly is back. We ought to be cheering and celebrating. But in fact it’s exhausting. It’s like it is with a newborn. We all have to get used to one another first. Elly is much more than four years removed from us. Judith says we shouldn’t ask too much of ourselves. We can’t go back to being familiar and intimate just like that. Apparently that applies to us as a couple too. Judith acts like we’re down a mine and she is bone tired. Frankly it’s ridiculous. What, if you please, could be so difficult and exhausting between us, now that Elly is back? I try to get Judith to relax with wine. I massage her neck, put her feet up. Nothing is right. Even if I hold my breath next to her on the mattress it’s too much for her. We share a duvet, a mattress. There is no partition in our bed. It ought to be so easy to move over in the other person’s direction, to rekindle the old warmth. But it’s as if we’re holed up in the same room conducting a long-distance relationship. At first I still reached for Judith, I would put my arm round her hips in the kitchen, gently kiss her ear. If she blinked anxiously or began to manically unload the dishwasher, I would quickly step away. Have I changed? Does my breath smell? Or my fat wobble? Is that all it is? I try to pull myself together. Sulking is childish. In any case, there are more important issues. Judith is right: we need to protect Elly. Nothing must ever happen to her again. We wrap her in cotton wool, we mollycoddle her. I’m not sure whether she enjoys these ministrations. At times I get the impression my youngest daughter is much older than she is. But then again there are things she doesn’t know that every other girl her age does. She was away for too long. The police psychologist advised us that Elly shouldn’t stay with us to begin with. Being near us might be too much for her. Judith didn’t take the suggestion on board. I thought we should have talked about it. But that’s what she’s like: Judith makes decisions on her own, then together we have to bear the consequences. I used to like the fact that she always takes the lead. Now I fear her harsh judgement. The flipside is that I can trust Judith. Two hundred per cent. She stands by her man. I disappear behind her. Judith would say I push her to the front. She grunts to indicate I should turn the bedside lamp off. But I want to look at her for a moment longer. The way she tosses and turns in the attempt to drift off. Her fists clenched around the duvet. Her closed eyelids with their blue veins. Darling, I murmur. Her eyeballs stop rolling for a second, her lids stay tightly shut. Guiltily, I think of all the things I didn’t accomplish today. It’s a long list. Every day it gets longer. As long as it’s light I procrastinate. I lose myself in a thousand trivial tasks, flit from one thing to another in my office or doing chores. I can’t even sit still in the evening when I try to reward myself for my day’s work with wine or snacks. It’s only when I lie down that the list catches up with me and stops me going to sleep. Elly is back. Our greatest desire has been fulfilled. Now everyday life can begin. We are trying to make everything right again. I think I’ll start with the washing up.