“It’s always the first thing on their mind,” said Ellen’s friend Madeline.

They were talking on the phone. Ellen was filing paperwork in her office and she could tell by the hissing and clattering that Madeline was cooking, probably something elegant and organic, and probably with a floral apron tied around her pregnant waist. Madeline was glowingly pregnant with her second child. She and Ellen had shared a flat when they were in their twenties, back when Madeline would have fallen about laughing at the thought of ever wearing a floral apron.

Ellen would have called Julia, but she’d found that Julia’s interest in hearing about Patrick had ever so slightly cooled as the relationship progressed. Even before Julia’s divorce, she had always been the sort of friend you called when things were going badly rather than when they were going well. Now that Patrick was officially Ellen’s “boyfriend,” there was just the tiniest hint of contempt in Julia’s voice when Ellen mentioned anything about him, unless it involved his crazy ex-girlfriend; she loved hearing about Saskia. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Ellen to be happy; it was just that she didn’t think there was much to say about happiness.

Madeline, on the other hand, was the sort of friend who cared deeply but was hopelessly inept when things were going badly, who panicked and changed the subject fast if someone’s voice so much as trembled with emotion.

Now Ellen frowned at the dismissive tone in Madeline’s voice. “That’s not true. That’s a cliché,” she said. “I’ve been out with men who never think about sex. Anyway, I’d just that moment had this revelation that I needed to stop thinking of him as a man, and think of him as an individual, as just another human being.”

“Just because he felt like sex doesn’t mean he’s not human.”

Madeline seemed to be missing the point.

“Yes, but with his son in the house?”

“Well, if you’re going to live with him, then you might have to get over that.”

“Don’t parents wait until their children are asleep?”

“Wasn’t the whole point of this story something to do with the expression on his face?”

“Yes, that’s right. So when I declined his charming offer, he got this look on his face, and I think it might have been a sulky look.”

“What do you mean you think?”

“Well, the expression was only there for a flash. I think those people who specialize in detecting lies call it a ‘micro-expression.’ After that, he was fine. We had a lovely dinner, and afterward we played Monopoly with his little boy and that was fun. But I kept thinking about that face he pulled, that micro-expression, and I thought: Is this a sign? Am I going to look back one day and say that was the moment I should have got out? Because that’s what micro-expressions do. They reveal your true self.”

“Ellen, this is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. The poor man is so enamored with you he wants sex every second of the day, and then when you turn him down, he shows the briefest look of disappointment—”

“I know, I know, I’m awful. Overanalytical. Hysterical. It’s just that I want this one to work, Madeline, I really want this one to work.”

“Well, of course you do,” said Madeline crisply.

So it’s serious. The hypnotist has met Jack. As far as I know, that’s the first woman he’s introduced to Jack since me.

I wonder what he thought of her.

She doesn’t really seem like a kid person. Too spiritual and floaty. Children like earthy, real people who get down on the floor and play with them. I can’t imagine someone who talks about “light filling your body” sitting in a sandbox.

I guess Jack is too big for sandboxes now, although it’s still there in their backyard. Sometimes, when Patrick is at work and Jack is at school, I go to the house and eat my lunch in the backyard. I sit there on the garden seat we bought on eBay, where I used to have my morning cup of tea, and I remember when this was my home and this was my backyard and this was my life.

I always told him we needed a padlock for that back gate.

I used to sit in that sandbox with Jack and we’d play with his Matchbox cars for hours. His dad did better sound effects than me, but I was more patient. Patrick was too much like a kid himself. He’d build this amazing racetrack through the sand, with bridges going over lakes, and then he’d get all frustrated when Jack suddenly decided to stand up and stomp on it. I’d say, “Patrick, he’s two years old.”

Jack looked so tall and lanky when he got out of the car at the hypnotist’s place. I was parked across the street. I just stayed there after my appointment with her. I’d had a feeling that Patrick was coming over for dinner. When she’d taken me upstairs, I’d smelled a garlic and wine sort of smell, like something marinating. I didn’t expect to see Jack come too. It gave me a shock. A sudden shock of indescribable pain, like when you’re a kid, and you’re hit on the nose with a basketball on a cold morning, and you cannot believe how much it hurts, and your friends all laugh and you want your mother so bad.

I don’t think Jack was especially excited about meeting the hypnotist. He didn’t look too happy. His shoulders were all slumped. I thought I saw him blowing his nose. I hope he doesn’t have the flu. It’s bad for people with underlying conditions like asthma.

Once, when he’d just turned three, and Patrick was away for work, Jack had an asthma attack in the middle of the night and I had to take him to Emergency. I can still remember the terror I felt seeing his little chest heaving as he tried to suck in enough air, and the way his beautiful green eyes fixed on mine, begging me to help him, and then sitting there with him on my lap, trying to stop him from pulling off that stupid little plastic mask while they gave him Ventolin. The doctors and nurses all assumed I was his mother. “How is Mum coping?” “Does Mum need a cup of tea?”