The pale boy before her seemed so delicate, a drop of rain might dissolve him. “Don’t you think that would be a selfish thing to do, taking your own life?”

She wanted to tell him, I married you because you held the fork in your left hand and the knife in your right – I could imagine us comfortable on holiday in Paris, you in easy conversation with the natives. I don’t feel anything like love for your fork and knife tonight.

The boy didn’t flinch when she placed the cold steel on the warm, rice paper flesh of his arm, surprisingly damp against her fingertips. She counted. Calculated. One-twenty. Racing.

She registered nothing about his mother who held his hand and led him to the big comfy chair upholstered in soft leather where he perched without making an indentation, his legs straight as crutches, the insides of both thighs turbulent with burn scars.

The woman at the water’s edge will be wearing a bikini the colour of the sea behind her and of the large flowers printed on the wrap around her waist and of the eyes of a boy Judith met only twice, a boy who showed her the futility of her life’s work.