A pattern returned to their existence, Mel taking the kids to school and usually being there to pick them up as well. Luke’s shifts were still erratic, but she accommodated them without a murmur, organising her mummy friends to do pickups when she had work meetings.

The kids were behaving themselves; in fact, he hardly heard a peep from them. Mel was upbeat, having landed herself a contract with the company she’d been chasing for the last six months, and he was keeping up at work. She seemed a lot happier and he relaxed a bit, still unsure in his mind as to what had happened when he had injured his eye, time fading his memory until he was no longer certain whose version of events was correct.

He tried to forget about it and the threats that Mel had hurled at him during their argument, but his unease would not go away, gnawing at him in the night. Have I done the right thing by staying? But as he saw it, he had no option. If she knew about the drugs, he couldn’t leave or he and the rest of his family would be in danger of being arrested. But worse than that, he might lose the right to see his own children. And if he told the truth about Mel, if anyone believed him, the kids might end up in care. It was these thoughts that really scared him, these eventualities that kept him by Mel’s side, because, when he’d worked it all through, it was the safest option for his children.

He stayed in the spare bedroom, where Callum often came to share his bed when he had nightmares or wet his bed and this, in itself, became a source of friction.

‘I think we should take him to the doctor,’ Mel said one evening, when the kids were upstairs and they were on their own, sharing a bottle of wine. It was a routine that Mel enjoyed, although Luke hardly touched the stuff because it aggravated his acid stomach and made him feel even more melancholy. But it was Mel’s daily treat, so he went along with it, pretending to drink while he kept topping up her glass.

Luke shook his head, adamant that was not going to happen. ‘No, I think it’s just all the changes. You’ve got to remember that his mum died.’ He saw Mel tense and hurried the conversation on, a prickle of unease scratching at his skin. ‘Then I moved them away from their friends. They’re at a new school.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a lot for a kid to deal with.’ Summarising it all for Mel gave his actions clarity in his mind, making him feel more protective of Callum. ‘They were just getting settled in at the farm when I bought this place. Then you came to live with us.’

A jolt of realisation ran through him and he cursed himself for not understanding earlier. Mel. The bed-wetting is all about Mel. Callum had been fine at the farm. It had started when they’d moved here and Mel had started staying over. He looked up to see Mel staring at him. He swallowed, hoping she couldn’t see what he was thinking. ‘Too much change for the lad, that’s all. It’ll settle down if we just give it time.’

‘But it’s so much work, Luke. A set of bedcovers to wash just about every day. I’m sure it’s not normal at his age.’

Luke took a deep breath to steady himself. ‘Well, I do all the bed-changing and put the stuff through the wash, so…’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you saying I’m not pulling my weight?’

Luke tensed and shook his head, sensing the beginnings of an argument. She could get that way with a bit of wine if she was feeling tired. He rubbed her arm. ‘No, love, I’m just saying that I’m doing my best to make sure it doesn’t affect you.’

He smiled at her, stroked her face with the back of his fingers. She melted into him, and he breathed out his relief. Maybe she wasn’t such a complicated character. More like a cat, in fact; loved attention and fuss and got narky when she was ignored. He had to learn to work with her moods, accept that she was totally different from Anna and not compare his life with Mel to the one he’d shared with his first wife. If he could be the husband she wanted him to be then there wouldn’t be a problem. Mel was right about me giving up too soon. Marriage took time and effort, especially when there were kids involved. Everyone had to get used to putting other people first. Teething trouble, that’s all this is.

Luke started to notice that the house was very quiet when he came home at night. So different to how it used to be at the farm, where his kids would be running round with Ceri’s children, a little gang of them playing make-believe games, usually orchestrated by Tessa, who, even at ten, couldn’t resist dressing up. As soon as they saw him they used to clamber all over him, telling him about their day.

Now, though, Callum was usually out at his friend’s house, who lived round the corner, and Tessa seemed to live in her room.

‘You okay, sweetie?’ Luke said one evening, popping his head round her bedroom door. She glanced at him, startled, a frightened look in her eye, holding something behind her back. When she saw it was him, she pulled out her phone, fingers flying over the keys at a speed Luke had never mastered. He went and sat on the bed next to her, put his arm round her shoulders.

‘How’s school going?’

She turned off her phone and tucked it under her pillow. ‘Fine,’ she said, sounding the opposite, arms crossed over her chest, her body all stiff and tense.

‘So, what did you do today?’

‘Oh, just stuff. You know. The usual.’

‘But you like school?’ Luke’s voice was hopeful, encouraging. Tessa always used to be such a chatterbox and having to drag information out of her was unnerving him. Had something else happened?

‘Suppose so.’

‘Is it better than Porthmadog?’

She nodded slowly, chewing her lip. ‘Dad?’

‘Yes, sweetie.’

‘Can we go back to the farm?’ Her voice wavered. ‘Please, Dad.’

His heart contracted in his chest. That was the last thing he wanted to hear. ‘But you’d have to go back to the old school then and I know you were finding it hard learning in Welsh. Isn’t this school better?’

Tessa sighed and snuggled into him. ‘It’s not school that’s the problem. It’s this house, Dad. I liked it at the farm. With Ceri and the little ones and the horses. And Nana and Pops.’

‘What’s wrong with this house?’

‘It doesn’t feel like…’ She scrunched his sweater in her hand, pulling herself closer to him. ‘It doesn’t feel like home.’

Luke’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Why’s that, sweetie?’

Tessa let out a sigh so big it made her whole body shudder. ‘Mel won’t let us do anything. We can’t have telly on if she’s working because it annoys her. And she won’t let us have friends round. And we can’t have biscuits or snacks when we come in because it’s not healthy. And we have to give her our phones when we come in because she doesn’t like us looking at screens all the time.’

Luke frowned. ‘But you’ve got your phone there.’

‘No, this isn’t mine. This is Emma’s. Her old one. She just got a new one for her birthday.’ She looked up at Luke, eyes beseeching. ‘Mel doesn’t know I’ve got this. You can’t tell her, Dad. Promise?’

‘Promise,’ he said, smoothing her hair away from her face, a face that was so like her mother’s it made him want to weep at times, a constant reminder of everything that he’d lost.

‘She doesn’t like Callum, so he has to go out all the time.’

‘I’m sure that’s not right, sweetie. ’Course she likes Callum. It’s just he likes playing with his friends.’

‘He’s scared of her, Dad. She’s really snappy with him when you’re not here.’ A shudder ran through her body. ‘She freaks me out, Dad.’

Luke was silent for a long moment.

‘She’s never…’ He swallowed, hardly daring to ask. ‘She’s never hurt you, though, has she?’ He held his breath as his daughter chewed on her lip before answering.

‘No, Dad. She doesn’t hit us. I’m not scared of her hitting me. She just says nasty things. And gets all moody.’ Tessa sniffed. ‘And then I can’t do anything right.’

Luke sighed as his daughter snuggled against his shoulder, a hollow feeling in his stomach.

‘Oh sweetie, I know she can get a bit worked up, but you’ve got to cut her a bit of slack. She’s not used to looking after children, you see. It’s going to take a little while to adjust.’

Tessa started to cry. ‘I want to go back to the farm, Dad. Please can I go? You can stay here, but please let me go. I hate it here. Really hate it. It’s like… like I’m in prison.’

Luke’s chest tightened, tears of his own pricking at his eyes. He couldn’t split his family up, but his daughter was clearly miserable. There was no easy answer and as he listened to his daughter’s sobs, all his energy ebbed away, his body so heavy he could hardly keep himself upright.

I’ve done this. I’ve made my kids unhappy. He was a poor excuse for a father. A poor excuse for a husband and in that moment, he wondered how he could find the energy to go on.