There was something about the way Helen interacted with her children that told me more about her possible situation than might otherwise have been apparent. It’s also likely that my own situation made me more sensitive to these nuanced interactions. At any other time I might simply have interpreted her loving devotion to Hester and Kingsley as nothing more than an innate parental love. But in that moment, it was more than this; it was also a compensation for something else, not guilt but a deeper sense of vulnerability we feel in our children from time to time when we know we are responsible for putting them through greater duress than is perhaps reasonable. In that moment I figured that Helen, like me, was in the process of separating from her children’s other parent.

We shared our respective situations. My time on the beach had been very contemplative and filled with angst and tinged with sadness. I am at least 50% of my children’s day to day care, perhaps even more but I still carry the sense of guilt that this process is causing them hurt. Helen and I talked and empathised for about half an hour and left each other feeling better.