Ordinary People: Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019

Then he does mention home – he mentions his daughter, he implies a wife, and never names either – and this brings a grieving splitting sensation: there’s a whole life there she cannot see and will never occupy – a series of loves and languages all incomprehensible to her, she is absolutely peripheral, bolted-on, and the bolts are coming loose.

When their marriage was still new, she never felt the need to lock it, and sometimes he would sit on the bathroom floor as she bathed and the two of them would talk about all the minutes and hours they’d spent apart. But after nearly twenty years together, it is as if their quota of words is almost gone and they have to ration them out, sparingly,

“She’s only three weeks old,” I say. “You weren’t even supposed to go back to work until she was one month, that’s what we agreed. You have such a good team there now. You need to trust them more.” “But I have an even better team at home,” Leo says. “You guys are doing great!” Great? The sensitive, articulate, successful man I married . . . is he s

‘You never did. But do you want to, even now? You can’ – he seemed to be leaning out of himself – ‘I’m just here.’ He breathed as if the air were thin. His lips were red. The buttons on his coat had come undone and he looked at Thomas with an elated will that had no desire in it. I know that look, thought Thomas, I’ve seen it before, when Lowlands