‘Good idea!’ Lorna said. Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she added, ‘Roast chicken was always Aidan’s favourite too.’ There he was in the room again, her beautiful son, still eighteen and piling roast potatoes onto his plate. Is that you? It’s me. They’d had a running joke about how many roasties he could eat. Sixteen, on one memorable Christmas Day, could you believe? Growing boys and their appetites!

Olivia stiffened for a moment before turning to find two mugs. ‘I’ve been thinking about him a lot today,’ she said. ‘Revisiting some of our old haunts.’

Lorna leaned forward greedily, as bad as Roy with his eye on a cream bun. This was what she’d come for. Tell me everything, she wanted to say. Every detail you can remember. Bring him back for me. ‘Where did you go?’ she asked instead.

Olivia started listing the stops she’d made – their old college, a friend’s house, a favourite beach – but there was something sort of closed about her face, Lorna noticed. Something she was holding back.

‘And how did they make you feel?’ Lorna prompted when Olivia’s words dried up. ‘Was it . . . Are you okay?’

Olivia was busy making tea, but Lorna saw her mouth twist at the questions. Oh dear. Had she gone in too personal too soon?

‘I was worried it would be overwhelming,’ Olivia confessed after a moment, in such a quiet voice that Lorna had to lean further towards her. ‘I’ve hardly been back at all to any of these places in twenty years, I just cut myself off because . . .’ She set a steaming mug down in front of Lorna and sat opposite her. ‘Because I couldn’t bear to revisit them, knowing he was gone,’ she finished.

They exchanged a small sad smile of understanding. Say no more, my darling, thought Lorna.

‘But today . . . I was surprised. I found myself thinking about happy times. All the best moments. It was . . . It was cathartic. And at times really lovely.’

‘Tell me,’ Lorna urged. Give me more. Please. Humour me. She wanted to continue building the jigsaw of her son, patched together with everyone’s nicest stories about him, to commemorate who he had been. Colour him in with bright memories so that he would never truly fade.

And so Olivia started recounting old tales, tiny snippets, moments of kindness. She talked about how she’d always felt Aidan had rescued her, brought out the best in her. Lorna drank in every word, every detail. Hadn’t she just told herself that today was going to be a good day? And she was right!

‘I just wish . . .’ Olivia said after a while, her eyes glassy. ‘I just wish I could have always been as nice to him as he was to me.’

‘You were nice to him!’ Lorna said in surprise. ‘He thought you were the bee’s knees, Olivia.’