The second international break of the season arrived like a ceasefire in the middle of a war. One day, you're standing on the touchline at St James' Park watching Neves volley the ball into the bottom corner, the next you're sitting in your apartment in Dulwich with nothing to do and nobody to shout at.
It was Monday evening, October 2nd. I was on the sofa again, cold beer, Monday Night Football. Emma was in the kitchen, on the phone to her editor at The Athletic she had taken the column, and her first piece was due Friday.
She was pitching something about fan culture in European away days, using the six hundred Palace supporters who had followed us to Marseille as the centrepiece. I could hear her voice through the doorway, sharp and professional, the journalist's cadence that was so different from the warm, teasing tone she used with me. Two Emmas. I loved them both.
