A Distracting Glow

They really began going to the coffee shop after their neighbours stopped visiting them, and then more desperately just after that last appearance Poh Sim's mother made. They went when the house became silent because there was no child to run around overturning chairs or knocking into doorknobs and the sharp edges of the kitchen cabinets. When the worry about the child being there when she turned round with a pot of hot water, from the stove, or of having the skin peeled off by the exhaust pipe just after he had parked the motorbike, was never going to come.