‘Oh look,’ Julie says as she leans over the kitchen sink. ‘Your cousin Ray is out there too. You’ve not seen him ages. Go on, go and get some fresh air.’

Kiama’s little face falls as he turns to leave the kitchen.

‘Hold on,’ Julie calls, a slight panic in her voice, as if he were going somewhere other than the garden. She grabs a bottle of sun cream from the top of the fridge and beckons him back to her. She had complained earlier about how tanned Kiama was, and despite the day being cool, she slathers the cream on his face thickly, leaving him coated in a white shine.

‘There you go,’ she says and kisses him on his newly shaven head.

He walks out and Julie waits till she can see him through the window, as he pads down towards his cousins and uncle before she sighs with relief. ‘I keep saying and doing the wrong thing.’

‘No,’ Yvonne says. ‘He needs to be distracted. It’s good for him.’ It’s good for her as well, since arriving at the house this morning Julie has kept her busy with a hundred different jobs from grating cheese for macaroni, to finding appropriate napkins, to opening and replying to each sympathy card.

‘I only feel at ease when he’s close,’ Julie says. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do it when he goes to school.’ She sets another block of cheese in front of Yvonne. ‘You hear about things happening in schools, don’t you? Bullying. Grooming. Some nutter bursting into a classroom and—’ she stops and pulls on her rubber gloves.

Yvonne walks over to the sink, ‘He’ll be okay.’

Julie turns and hugs her and Yvonne feels warm bubbly water from the Marigolds drip down the back of her shirt. ‘I’m so glad it was you,’ Julie says. ‘I’m so glad you were there to keep him safe, to bring him home.’ They pull apart. ‘Sorry, look what I’ve done. You’re soaked.’ She grabs some kitchen roll and they both dab at the shirt, before wiping their eyes instead. Yvonne didn’t think it was possible to cry this much in one day. But it’s felt good to let it out, especially after the last few weeks of feeling so completely blocked and numb.

‘Mum, have you—’

Yvonne flicks her head around in response to what she thinks is Lewis’s voice, but it’s not. They all sound the same, the brothers. Ever since she arrived it’s been disconcerting, to constantly hear Lewis.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Danny says. ‘You alright, Mum?’ He puts his arm around her but she snaps back to being fine. ‘What are you looking for?’ she asks, while plunging her hands into the sink.