‘It goes in the mouth, buddy,’ I tell him.

He startles, and flicks toothpaste foam onto the mirror.

‘Yeah,’ he says as he pokes the brush into his mouth, perhaps for the first time today, ‘but why does my breath need to be minty fresh for community service?’

‘Your teeth need to be looked after indefinitely. It’s not about your breath this morning. With teeth, you’re always playing the long game.’

He has gelled his hair – overgelled it into a vanilla lick of soft-serve ice cream – but the dental message is yet to penetrate to the depth it needs to. So far it is just parent and step-parent talk, background Charlie-Brown-teacher Wah Wah Wahs.

The brush changes its tone, from constant to pulsating, and he says, ‘That’s two minutes,’ and switches it off. He smiles with a confidence designed to tell me the job is done.

‘Okay, now two more minutes, and this time the brush goes in your mouth.’

He contemplates argument, shelves the idea, and instead gives a flicker of an expression that says, once again in his life, idiocy reigns supreme. It’s gone before I can call him on it.

Two minutes later, his teeth actually cleaned, he leads the way up the stairs.

In the van, he buckles himself into his preferred middle seat in the second row. The view out the front is better from there and, in the second row, there is no view from the sides. He is better placed for side-on collisions as well, but that’s a prospect we never discuss. He had nightmares for weeks after my accident.

Not so long ago, he was caught shoplifting at the Merc – Crow Creek Mercantile, the only grocery store in town. He took two packets of gum, and ran for the door in a way that could not have got him more attention. There were four kids involved. The word ‘gang’ was used, until sense prevailed. Lacy had her phone off, teaching, so I got the call.

Cedar was in a wailing panic by then, picturing police coming up the highway from Whittier, chain gangs, jail time. When I drove up, he was sitting on the steps with a travel pack of tissues from the Merc in one hand and a crumpled pile of used tissues next to him. Cedar was one of three seven-year-olds sent in to steal that day by a boy from two grades higher at school who had not actually threatened violence, perhaps because he was just too smart for that. The motivational balance between implied threat, excitement and the promise of free stuff was hard to determine. The others had fled, but their identities were no secret, and phone calls were being made.

Before it became anything bigger, I told the Merc people I was sure Cedar would want to make it right. Cedar nodded hard, and kept looking down at the floorboards. We settled on ‘community service’, which means he cleans their windows every Saturday morning for a month.