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Where was he planning to stop? When he had twenty lightly used towels in his bedroom? Forty? A room filled from floor to ceiling with towels? Who knew? Who could predict the workings of the mind of a teenage boy?

Not her, and not the boy himself, that was for sure.

She took the towels and dumped them outside the bathroom. She cracked open the door. It was filled with steam and she turned on the extractor fan. The paint was peeling and she had asked Otis to make sure he used the fan, but this was, it seemed, beyond him.

‘They’re outside,’ she said. ‘Take your pick. There are seven of them.’

She closed the door. As she walked down the stairs in her floral dress she heard her son calling out.

‘Mom! These are dirty!’

Well put them in the fucking washing machine then, she thought, and walked into the living room.

On the couch, Ryan was watching something on his iPad. There was a second – maybe a third, because who was counting – beer in his hand.

Mary stood in front of him and raised her eyebrows, her hands open in front of her, as if to say So, what do you think?

‘Everything OK?’ he said.

‘This is where you tell me how beautiful I look?’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You look beautiful.’

‘Don’t you like this dress?’ She hated herself for asking but she wanted to know, just in case there was something wrong with it, something she had missed.

‘It’s fine.’

‘I want it to be more than fine,’ she said. ‘I want it to be really amazing.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Ryan said. ‘But it’s very nice. Certainly more than fine.’

She paused. She knew it was a joke, but had he really said that? Did he not realize that this wasn’t a joking matter? She was hardly vain, but a genuine comment that he found her attractive would have been welcome. More than welcome: required.

‘Seriously, though. Do you think it looks better than my red dress? The one with the low-cut neck?’

Ryan paused. ‘They’re the same.’

‘Which do you prefer?’

‘I like them both equally.’

She sucked in her bottom lip.

‘They can’t be equal. One has to be better than the other.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘They can be equal. At least, I think they are. Although you could take it off and try on the other one?’

‘Take it off? Here?’

‘Upstairs would be better.’

In the past – she wasn’t sure how distant, but definitely in the past – it would have been at least a somewhat tempting prospect. They could have gone upstairs and locked the bedroom door to keep the kids out. It would have had to be quick, but there was nothing wrong with that.

But not tonight. Not with the slightly glazed look in Ryan’s eyes and his lack of interest in what she was wearing.

A few moments ago she had wanted him to make her feel attractive; now she found him off-putting.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘You just want me to take my clothes off.’