When you stayed up till two again

It'll happen. A row with something real in it, a night when neither of you called it, the old rule back in the room because it's been there for years, and it'll be two in the morning and nothing settled and the alarm at half past six.

One night isn't the marriage. The list from chapter 1 shows a month with three truces in it and one sofa, and last year it was all sofa. What happened is that the old rule is old and the truce is new, and on a night with something real in it, the old rule got there first.

Call the truce late. It works at two as well as at half past ten. "We're not finished and that's fine. Eight o'clock." Then up, same bed, note by the kettle. Two in the morning isn't too late to stop. It's just later than you'd have liked, and the resume time is still the resume time.

Work out which belief got through. Was it "it'll fester", because the row felt bigger than usual? Then chapter 4, and notice at eight whether it did. Was it "they'll think I don't care", because the other person looked hurt when you reached for the sentence? Then chapter 10, and the sentence with the caring in it. Was it that nobody had the sentence ready because the Sunday agreement had faded? Then the Sunday conversation again, this weekend.

No streaks. Don't count nights without a sofa. Count resume times kept, and let one two o'clock be one line in a list that's mostly eight o'clocks. And notice, at eight, that the morning after a two o'clock is worse than the morning after a truce, which is the whole argument of the book, arriving as evidence.