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They were in her bag. Looking for them was the reason she had discovered the note. She levered herself up onto unsteady legs.

‘Coming,’ she said, her voice high and strained. ‘In a moment.’

She put the AirPods in her pocket and walked over to the sink. She ran the faucet and splashed cold water onto her face, relishing the shock. She took another deep, long breath, then headed for the stairs.

Otis was waiting at the top in his boxer shorts, his torso long and lean. When he was born she had marvelled at the miracle of a baby, of the new life she had created. A mistake, Eddie had called it, but she had rejected that word, had chosen unplanned to describe her miracle. Whatever it was, it was the most amazing and wondrous experience of her life.

She had thought that nothing would ever surpass that feeling, that the moment she met her first-born would be the pinnacle of her life, but as the years had gone by the love and wonder she felt had only grown, had become deeper and richer in ways she had never expected. And now she had this sixteen-year-old near-man in her house. How had this happened? How had she got from a drunken night’s irresponsible sex with Eddie to a baby to this fantastic, complicated, full-formed human being?

It defied all understanding; certainly hers.

‘Why are you wet?’ he said. ‘On your face?’

She brushed her cheek with her fingers. ‘I needed to freshen up.’

‘What for?’ He had a look of concern, his brow furrowed and his gaze suspicious, and she realized that along with all the other changes, the acne and faint moustache and stinking feet and armpits, he was also becoming aware of other people in a way that younger children weren’t. He was starting to see that they were independent, thinking entities, that they were unpredictable, that they might not always be the same as they had been, that they might be happy or content or worried or fearful. It was a particularly acute awakening when it came to your parents. She remembered going through it herself, remembered the burgeoning understanding that her parents were not the fixed points they had always seemed. They had insecurities and flaws and got as many things wrong as they got right. She had always assumed that her mother, an accountant in a large insurance firm, loved her job, or at the very least derived some satisfaction from it. It was what she did: she left the house in the morning and came home in the evening – sometimes late – and then she was there for her daughter and her son. It had seemed to Mary like her mom was simply the kind of person who lived and worked like that, so it had been a shock to find out she found it empty and tedious and a waste of her life.

I’m making a good salary, she said, to an unnamed listener on the phone, but I’m not sure that’s enough any more. I’m in these meetings all day with people who are tired or grumpy or disengaged and it seems so pointless.

A pause while she listened.

I need to do something else with my life.

Mary wasn’t sure what was more shocking: the fact her mom was even thinking about quitting her job, leaving the family dependent on her dad’s carpenter’s salary – because that was how her teenaged brain interpreted what she had eavesdropped on – or the fact she had hopes and dreams and an inner life that included feelings like needing more from life than the greyness of her corporate career.

What else was she dreaming of ? An escape to a new life with a younger man?

It had worried her, and now she saw the same worry on her son’s face, and she hated it. She hated that it meant he was entering the adult world, with all its anxiety and disappointment and fear. What was the saying? Life’s a bitch, and then you die? She didn’t think it was quite like that – there was plenty of joy and happiness and love and friendship – but there was the other stuff as well and part of growing up was realizing it.

And she didn’t want him to. She wanted him to be an innocent, smiling, naïve child forever.

‘Are you OK?’ he said.

She was far from it, her heart still hammering in her chest, her stomach still knotted, but she forced a smile to her lips.

‘Of course I am.’ She handed him the AirPods. ‘Good night, Otis. I love you.’

‘I love you, too, Mom.’

He did, he really did, and, for a moment, the fact of that was enough to make her think that whatever was going on, everything would be OK.

But only for a moment.

But Why?

Mary lifted the cover and climbed into bed, where she lay, eyes open, watching the shadows of tree branches flicker on the ceiling.

Otis had gone to bed, the bathroom light switched off and the landing light left on. He had always hated sleeping in the dark and even now, if she went to bed and absent-mindedly flicked off the switch to the landing light, she would hear him stir and pad gently out of his room to turn it back on again.

Next to her in bed Ryan snored gently, the rumbling inhale and exhale punctuated by occasional snorts and moans. She wondered what he was dreaming about, whether he was dreaming at all.

She wanted to wake him, tell him about the second note, but she stopped herself. Would it even register with someone roused from a deep and drunken slumber? And if it did, what would he say? What could he say? He could comfort her, but that wouldn’t change anything. Besides, she wanted to think this through herself.

The only thing that would have been useful was if he had seen someone slip it into her bag – but if he had seen something he would already have mentioned it, surely.

And someone had slipped it into her bag.

The thought stilled her breath and she sat upright, propped up on her elbows, as the full implications of that sank in.