I know I promised. I swore in front of God’s eyes to honour Jenny and to love her and not just then and not only in sickness and in health but for all the days of our lives and that is what I am doing. They don’t say until death do us part any more. And I meant it too, clearly about welcoming any children that we might have. We were meant to have an open heart while we were doing the welcoming. We ought to cherish them too.

I fetch ice cream from the freezer. HB Vanilla and there is a whoop of delight from the children when I dish it out. And then Joey says, I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

And then our meal is over.

After dinner I look at the photo again. We are all full of a heightened happiness in it and I didn’t realize it at the time – that emotions could be so elevated like that but they can be and this elevation can be captured. Maeve is young in the photograph, five years of age maybe, I cannot really remember. Her hair is seaweed-strewn and the freckles from the Connemara sun are visible on her nose. They add a kindness to her face as though you can paint on characteristics in pointillism. An innocence on her too and you can tell she’s been pulling faces just moments before I took the snap because her eyes have a devilment in them which I love about her. She is wearing a pink dress that my mother bought for her and I remember how Jenny thought it was somehow odd that I would want to hang on to this dress when we were clearing out the children’s old clothes. And the way Jenny, I remember now with a clarity, how she wanted me to move on quickly after my mother died. I was expected to get on with it, we were so busy with the children, too busy to waste time on grief. Jenny’s mother was gone and now mine was and I was to get over it.