–  Just keep your mouth closed for the photo, I said. Don’t smile with your teeth and you’ll be grand. Anyway, Marius has no teeth at all so I don’t know what you’re worrying about!

Great consolation there from the Mammy of the Year! There’s always someone worse off than yourself if you would just open your eyes to it.

The blackbirds sound off a few chirrups of alarm as he comes past the row of oaks in the border of the river field. Would that be the song to haunt me? The gate whines open and clangs shut and the bats take off in a black cloud. The soft crunch of his step comes closer.

–  Hello, Mary.

–  John.

He has grown his hair again; it is down to his shoulders. A small rucksack tells me he isn’t staying long. He’s brown as a nut and even from a safe distance I could tell he’s as clean as he had always been. I bet he smells light, natural, tender. The tears started to boil up from my secret reservoir, gathering in a choking lump at the back of my throat. I swallow them down and speak.

–  How was Australia?

–  I missed the rain.

–  Well, you’re back now, you can stand out in it!

–  I might just do that!

–  How are the boys? Do you think they’ll ever come home?

–  They’re not far away, Mary, nothing’s far away these days …

Why did it feel like the moon? He went into the house then, stooping at the half-door as he’d always done. I hear him walk the length of the kitchen and put the kettle on. He would be looking around, figuring out what changes he would make. I hear him talking to Ginger who’s under his feet already looking for a scratch. I’d lived long enough to be jealous of a cat.

The bats regroup in the branches of the first big sycamore, so close I can hear their tiny clicks. I would miss the quivering velvety mass of them. I would miss sitting in the square of light from my kitchen. Would miss the milk house with its solid walls and red tin roof. Would miss the joy of pans of fruit bubbling to a golden syrup. Would miss the shush of the river as it rounded the bend. Would miss the sweep of Combover Hill as it wound its way over the horizon. Would miss every blade of grass like I missed every hair on my children’s heads.