Summer came early and we sat out in the back garden for much of it, the boys jumping into the large paddle pool, except Nathan who didn’t like sun or water, and sat under a tree with a Stephen King book. The yellow rosebuds were coming out, and the black spots were challenging them. Alex had littered pots here and there, terracotta ones, with bright daisies and sunflower seeds, all potential. Until they got eaten by slugs.

I picked up my laptop once, and closed up some deals. I read some books, lots of books.

Time slowed.

The tooth fairy came and three legged-races were lost. Matches were played and mostly lost, dinosaurs were renamed, teeth were left unbrushed, jocks were left for pick-up, and fights broke out. Someone on the bus told Jacob that he was a pansy. And I told the little shit that I’d break his fucking scrawny legs if he hassled my son again. And I taught Jacob how to say it, loud, and not to be afraid. It took a long time to get him to scream out. He kept giggling, and covering his mouth with his little fat hands – no, Mammy.

Piano grade one, violin grade three and a row with Joshua about giving up music altogether. We compromised and he switched to electric guitar. I instructed Alex to burn all school reports, for no news is good news, because we should be valued in neither our successes nor our failures, but in our endurance.

We redecorated every room with colour.

*

One Monday, Margaret Rose came around for lunch. She arrived at the front door and when I opened it she looked unusual, somewhat uncomfortable in her clothes. She had a fussy peach-and-gold scarf about her neck, and her hair had been blow-dried and back-combed; her face looked strange, somehow more stern or lined, with dark foundation and black eye kohl and lashings of blue mascara. In the kitchen she fussed with her large orange handbag and after much coaxing, eventually sat on a high stool at the kitchen island, constantly checking behind her. Hegs had passed away some hours after the glass fell from the window, she told me – it was the shock – but he went very fast, and looked younger as a corpse than he had ever looked in life. She always went to removals, it’s the right thing to do, she said.

Things were not so good with Paddy. He was missing again, but the girls were doing OK, it was hard keeping them away from trouble. My boys hadn’t reached this age, she said, and quickly apologised and blessed herself. But just wait until they do. Then apologised again and blessed herself, and a final apology for blessing herself. We laughed and she relaxed a little. We had tea and a slice each from an apple tart after lunch, which she’d brought; I was embarrassed I hadn’t baked anything, and she told me life was too short to worry about baking. That she’d only come to see me, to talk to me, because in truth, she missed me. She’d sent Jane a care package, every month since, you know, they moved her to, well, you know, she wasn’t comfortable with where they had moved Jane and so I didn’t press her; she chatted about the care package, just things, photos of Clifden, Dog’s Bay, boats at Roundstone, some soap, handcream, magazines, a few loose tops and nice trousers, some bras, knickers and a lipstick. But she was refused entry to see her. Only family.