BEHIND BARS

I’m the only Dad at Mia’s seventh birthday party. Holly and I wander through the open side gate, and she slips from my hand and joins a gaggle of children on the bouncy castle in the garden. It wheezes under their weight. The mums are chatting, intermittently calling out, “not so rough,” between the rubber turrets.

I only do the school drop-off. No one lingers then, so I recognise faces, which child goes with which parent, and who drives what, but nothing useful like their names.