We’re short-staffed, love. Don’t wait up.
And whenever he finally got into bed he looked so wrecked that I swallowed every single thing I had been saving up all week.
Once I woke at about three and he was sitting on the edge of the mattress with his back to me, and his shoulders were going.
I said: Soren?
He wiped his face before he turned round. I remember the sound of it, his palm on his face, before I saw anything.
He said: rough night. Go back to sleep.
And I did.
I want that on the page early, because everything else in this is built on it. I said his name once, I got four words back, and I went to sleep.
My name is Wynne and I am thirty-nine and I teach year four at a primary school about a mile from our house.
I mention the job because it matters. I spend my entire working life watching eight-year-olds and knowing within four seconds which of them has had a bad morning.
