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left on the playground, the farthest class from the gate, and therefore the one with the longest public parade. The crowd’s ventriloquist whispers sound like a distant storm at sea. The mothers discuss protocol beneath their breath. There is no consensus and a few are now breaking ranks and gamely stepping forward to smile sympathetically at Freddie—he looks down, hates being singled out at the best of times—and offer condolences to Ollie, who scuffs his trainer against the painted yellow lines on the concrete playground like a schoolboy. Resisting the urge to hug Freddie—he is still mine, still someone else’s child—the women reach instead for Ollie, maternally patting his arm or hand or, rather less maternally in Tash’s case, the small of his back, near the waistband of his jeans. Even those who are tearful and tongue-tied want to touch Ollie, as if they need to know what a bereaved dad actually feels like. Perhaps touching one makes them feel it won’t happen to them too. I guess we’ve all wondered: having children makes youponder your mortality, ghoulishly hypothesize the what-ifs. Funny thing is that before this happened I did that too, idly, indulgently. Comfortable that things like this didn’t happen to people like us.
    The school bell rings. There is a twitch in Ollie’s lower lip now, barely perceptible but a sign to me who knows that lower lip as well as I know my own that he is fighting tears.
    If Ollie cries now I swear someone will try to breastfeed him.
    Mrs. Simpson, Freddie’s teacher, greets them at class 2A’s door. She is professional and kind and does not make a fuss—much to Ollie’s and Freddie’s obvious relief—and takes Freddie’s hand and leads him inside his old classroom, which, I hope, will be mercifully the same as it always was, unlike everything else in his life. The door closes. Ollie stands there for a moment, facing the shut door, lost, his face blank like a man who has woken up and no longer has the first clue who he is. His features reconfigure and he takes a deep breath, then walks back to the tall iron school gates, his black eyes drilling into the ground.
    This is not a good enough defense. Oh, no. Without Freddie to shield him, Ollie is open season. Some of the women have been waiting for him to return: I know their migratory patterns and I know that normally they would have flocked to Starbucks by now. Instead, they’re hovering by the gate. Suze. Tash. Lydia. Liz. The usual suspects.
    “Is there anything, anything at all we can do to help?” implores Suze. Her giant breasts quiver in the deep V of her gaping blue blouse as if they are domed conductors for the group’s electrical storm of pent-up emotion.
    Ollie shakes his head and tries to smile. “No. Thanks.” He starts to walk away.
    Lydia bars him with her sheepskin Ugg boot. “Washing?”
    “Washing?” repeats Ollie, puzzled.
    “Would you like us to do your washing, Ollie?” Lydia speaksslowly as if addressing a small child, even though Ollie towers over her fairy frame.
    “Washing,” he repeats, as if it were something he hadn’t ever considered before, and probably hasn’t. “My mother…”
    “Or shopping?” Liz agitates her foot on her son’s blue scooter.
    “I…I…” Ollie is a man of few words but is never normally lost for them. He stares blankly at the scooter.
    “Would Freddie like to sleep over?” Tash jumps into his hesitation, stepping closer so that he can smell the perfume caught within the soft pelt of her white fake fur stole. (Even I can smell the perfume and I’m near the school hall guttering.)
    A lemony sun breaks through the cloud. Ollie’s pupils shrink to pencil points. In the last three weeks he’s spent a lot of time alone in the dark, like a miner. His olive skin is pale and flaky. “I’m trying to keep Freddie close. Just at the moment.”
    “As normal as possible. Of course, of course,” gushes Tash apologetically. “But if you ever need me to