Even then, as I mentally repacked my suitcase while unzipping the extraordinarily well- organised plastic folder to recheck all the essential documents, it didn’t seem real. H was already beginning to buzz on the crest of an adventurous wave, but I felt displaced and reticent, my children abandoned too many miles in the wrong direction.

In order to combat the deeply engrained parental guilt, I had come to think of this as an experiment. It was, I decided, a giant step toward breaking the co-dependence that had once been our strength and was fast becoming a weakness now their father had departed and we had no common foe to stand united against.

On the day my husband left us he had been missing. The self- indulgent pleasure of having the bed to myself soon replaced by a familiar gut wrenching fear and heavy silence through which the children passed like wary phantoms in search of sanctuary. When he finally appeared and began packing his bags we said nothing to deter him, instead merely waited until he was gone releasing us from our shared misery.