He just went on. Retching and crying...I said nothing, I knew he would not hear me, he was too angry, too scared. I could not console him. The best I could do was to grab his arm hold it firm and place my other hand on his shoulder and try and slow him from his shaking, but I couldn’t. He went on shaking and retching and weeping

He had stopped shaking only to start rocking back and forth. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying so hard to stop himself but he couldn’t. An hour later…I handed him his glass…he held it to his lips stopped and took it away, placed it on the table and watched it for 10 minutes before I took it away and emptied it into the sink. Nothing could have worked to numb either of us. He curled up on the sofa and me on the floor. I looked at the clock and calculated that it had been 5 hours ago that he had seen them.

In the morning I called into work for him to say that wouldn’t be able to make it and again for the next 2 days.