I thanked her for coming and said I hadn’t been sure she would.

We hugged, in that awkward way misplaced people do, and neither of us knew when to let go. So we stood for a long time, my face in her fussy scarf.

Byebyebyebyebye.

Bye.

Margaret Rose dipped her finger into the hole at the foot of Jesus. She then walked out the front door backwards, blessing herself.

‘He’s a finer, right?’ I said, nodding at my mother’s gift.

‘Not funny, Sinéad,’ she said, laughing. ‘Jaysus, God be good ta ya,’ leaving the way she arrived, to leave luck in our home.

*

Later that evening the boys were in their PJs. Except Joshua, who no longer wore PJs and was walking around the house in a pair of jocks and a black hoody, the hood permanently up on his round head. We lay under duvets that Nathan had placed down in the sitting room, coaxing us all to watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Getting everyone off personal screens was almost impossible, but Nathan worked hard at family gatherings. Joshua complained, wanting to play Xbox, and Alex plucked down his hood and tossed his hair – fuck sake, Dad – and Joshua quickly put it up again. Alex then told him to put on pants, and he grunted, fuck sake, Dad, pants, really? And saying he’d watch the dumb film only if he could stay on his phone, but Alex pleaded, no phones rule, remember, and Nathan kept repeating, Alex went on, you know the rules, you do, and Joshua told him the film was full of inaccuracies, but also said it was all dumb fiction in any case. Alex pleaded again, put-on-pants, get-off-phone, stop-cursing, and though he continued revealing spoilers, Joshua did what he was told, eventually, and took the hood down, telling Nathan and Jacob that it was all about Harry’s dead parents, which, he felt very strongly, was a stupid way to begin anything, but Nathan disagreed, saying, look what Harry had achieved, all alone, and Alex said that when someone loves us, like properly loves us, we bring that love for ever, and ever. Nathan agreed, and Jacob looked wide-eyed and interested in how a kid like Harry could do so much with a wand, until Joshua said they were all just silly posh kids, and Harry Potter didn’t exist anyway, so it was all a big waste of time. Jacob said he was real and had curly glasses. And we all laughed, except the teenager who watched it with one eye on his phone, and one on the TV screen.

*