She gets up and goes to the kitchen. I watch her go.

What do I remember about living with her, before? Her warmth. Her violence. Her loyalty. Her barbs. Her largesse. She always had to have the last word. Her moods were riotous. Every now and then over the past twenty years I have felt, suddenly, how far apart my mother and I are, and a wash of cold has flooded over my entire body. Then I remember that this happened when I lived with her, too. Sometimes I’d make myself look more scared than I was, just to guilt her. (Later, I did this a few times with Art, too. I cowered. I shrank from him; or rather, from his fear of himself. Worse: his fear of the fatherly part of himself. I must admit that, now. I was aware of that sly leverage.) I knew that what I felt for my mother was, long-haul, in danger of distilling down to the purest of feelings – a feeling that, after her death, would feel like the bleakest, most pointless seclusion.

ART SAID

‘Are you crying?’

I was. I was openly weeping, in front of the TV.

‘What is it?’ he said, his face open, his hand on my hand as he dropped to his knees. ‘What?’

‘This,’ I said, weakly gesturing to the screen. A manatee was swimming in a school. A smaller manatee was swimming behind it.

‘Oh, babes, you know you shouldn’t watch nature documentaries!’

‘No, it’s fine! I’m not sad. It … makes me want to have a baby.’

Art’s face changed. He stood up. ‘What?’ he said, laughing.

‘IT MAKES ME WANT TO HAVE A BABY,’ I bellowed.

‘A great ugly sea cow?’

‘I don’t know why. Order amongst the chaos? Blame Darwin. David Attenborough. I don’t know!’ I wept more.

He looked around my feet. ‘Have you had … wine?’

‘No!’ I said. I noticed him notice the empty glass. ‘Well, not to a traumatic degree.’

He put his arm around me. ‘Why don’t you put some comedy on? Leave these delightful creatures to it.’

He turned over. It was Frasier. Daphne-supposedly-from-Manchester was affectionately abusing Niall and he was affecting not to love it.

‘What do you think?’ I said. ‘About babies? I hate to be prosaic but I am approaching my mid-thirties and once you hit thirty-five you’re technically a geriatric mother. They actually call you that.’

‘Yeah. Maybe. I mean yeah! I haven’t given it loads of thought.’

‘So what should we do?’

‘I was thinking we could order a takeaway and demolish a box set.’ He got up. Canned laughter erupted from the TV.

I said, ‘You like hanging out with Kelly and Sonny, don’t you? You enjoy that dynamic. That … role.’