‘No.’ I was reaching a stress limit and Gene must have sensed it.

I retrieved my passport from my bathroom-office cabinet. I would use the travel time between the apartment and the airport to solicit advice from Dave and Gene. It was critical to optimise my argument before I saw Rosie. I realised that there was an opportunity to improve the advisory panel. On the way out, I visited George and he agreed to join us.

I sat in front with Dave. Gene and George sat in the back seat.

‘What are you going to say to her?’ said Dave.

‘I’m going to tell her she made an error on her spreadsheet.’

‘If I didn’t know you so well, I’d think you were kidding. All right, I’m going to play Rosie. Ready?’

I supposed that if Sonia could imitate Rosie, there was no reason why Dave could not. I looked out the window to avoid being distracted by his anomalous physical appearance.

‘Don, I’ve thought of something I missed on the spreadsheet. You snore. Five points off. Goodbye.’

‘You can use your normal voice. I don’t snore. I’ve checked with a recorder.’

‘Don, whatever you say, I’ll find something else to put on the spreadsheet because it’s only there to convince you I’ve made the right decision.’

‘So you won’t come back no matter what I do?’

‘Maybe. Do you understand what you did that made me leave?’

‘Explain it again.’

‘I can’t. I’m Dave. You explain it to me to make sure you understood it.’

‘I was doing things that you could do already, only in an annoying way.’

‘Right. You were in my face all the time. The toughest thing for fathers is to find a role. For me, it’s being the breadwinner.’

‘You want to be the breadwinner? I thought you wanted to look after the baby, then get a research job.’

‘I’m being Dave now. You’ve got to work out where you fit. What position you play. She thinks she doesn’t need you. There’s only one relationship in her mind now: her and the baby. That’s biology.’

‘You’ve been paying attention,’ said Gene.

One relationship. Our relationship had been usurped, superseded, rendered obsolete by the baby. Rosie had what she wanted. Now she didn’t need me.

‘This must happen with all relationships,’ I said. ‘Why don’t all relationships split up?’

‘Groupies,’ said George. ‘Seriously, you’ve got to find your own way. None of my relationships was ever the same after the first kid.’

‘Give it six months,’ said Gene. ‘It gets better.’ Gene seemed to have chosen a timescale that supported his argument, like a populist denier of global warming. Obviously his marriage was now in a worse state than six months after the birth of Eugenie. But he had recently resumed contact with Carl. It seemed reasonable to conclude that happiness in marriage was not a simple function of time, and that instability was part of the price of an improvement in overall wellbeing. My experience was consistent with this.

Dave added: ‘What you’re supposed to do is take the load off your wife so she has time for you. Do the washing, vacuum the house. That’s what everybody says. Everybody who’s never tried to run a business.’

‘Sonia can take responsibility for all paperwork,’ I said. ‘Hence freeing you up for relationship-enhancing activities.’

‘I can run my business,’ said Dave. ‘I don’t need help from my wife.’

‘I reckon if your wife offers to do the books for you,’ said George, ‘you say, “Thank you very much,” and do the bloody vacuuming, and when you’re done you use the spare time for a well-earned bonk.’

Dave did not speak again until he pulled into the drop-off zone. ‘Do you want me to wait?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s more efficient to catch the Airtrain.’

‘No carry-on, sir?’

The security officer (estimated age twenty-eight, estimated BMI twenty-three) stopped me after I had passed through the scanner without incident.

‘Just my phone and passport.’

‘Can I see your boarding pass? You checked a bag?’

‘No.’

‘You’re going to LA with no bags?’

‘Correct.’

‘Can I see some ID?’

I gave him my Australian passport.

‘Step over here, sir. Someone will be here to talk to you momentarily.’

I knew what momentarily meant in American.

In the interview room, I was conscious of Rosie’s flight time approaching. Fortunately my interviewer, a male (approximately forty, BMI twenty-seven, bald), dispensed with formalities.

‘Let’s cut to the chase. You just decided to go to LA, right?’

I nodded.

‘You didn’t have time to pack underwear, but you remembered your passport. What do you plan to do there?’

‘I haven’t made plans yet. I’ll probably fly home.’

After that, they performed a thorough inspection of my clothes and body. I did not object because I did not want to waste time. It was only marginally more unpleasant than my routine check for prostate cancer.

I was returned to the interview room. I decided it might be helpful to share further information.

‘I need to join my wife on the flight.’

‘Your wife’s on the flight? With the bags? Why didn’t you say so before?’