He looked at Gavin, my tall careful oldest, and something flickered.

Then his eyes moved to Mason, and the flicker deepened.

Then Lucas.

Then Clara, still standing forward, still looking at him.

Then little Audrey, half-hidden in my skirt.

And I watched ten years of a comfortable story come apart behind my ex-husband’s eyes in the space of five seconds, because he was not looking at five strange children.

He was looking at his own face, reflected five times, standing at his father’s grave.

Confusion came first — the honest bewilderment of a man whose eyes were telling him something his life had been built on denying.