The sirens wailed in the distance, and there was an inked in blackness outside the window. He had taken himself to the far side of the dully-lit room, and leant his head against the glass, looking over the suburban lights. He felt as if he was leaning out into the night and falling into it, through the membrane, seeing nothing.

He had meant to say something to her before she had left, he really did. But those words had become crust, and she had turned her shoulder already. That familiar shoulder.

He listened to the sirens outside sounding like birds answering each other, echoing the other’s call. Such a hollow empty sound. They were wailing, calling to the other to reassure each of the distance.

He knew they would pass soon enough. Their urgency waned and ebbed, disappeared, as his forehead grew cold pressed against the liquid blackness.

This was the kind of night you were meant to have faith, or something like it. You were meant to lean into something more than a window. You were meant to feel the Godhead, know that it was there and pull it round you like a blanket.

But it was hard to feel forsaken when you didn’t believe there was anything there in the first place.

Believing in something like that just wasn’t his style.

The thought snagged in his head, and hooked his chin upright. He stared at the bent reflection of himself in the glass, examining the hollow sockets of his eyes. In the reflection he could see the glazed light spilling in from the hallway that she had taken when she had strode out of the room. The air still shook with her.

He already knew that when he left he would turn the opposite direction to the one that she had taken.

As she would be opening the door to where their son lay, he would lift his head from its pressed position against the glass, and he’d walk away.

As she would take the tiny hand of a boy who hadn’t breathed, he would walk through the sliding doors to the street and gulp on the air.