William continued calling out cars.

‘Ford.’

‘’nother one Ford.’

‘Mummy car.’

I smiled. My wife – William’s mum – drove a VW Golf. Every time he spotted one, he’d call it out. Not a Volkswagen. A Mummy car.

‘It’s a Mummy car. Look, Daddy.’

My phone buzzed in the hands-free cradle: a Facebook notification.

‘What was that, Wills?’

‘Over there, look.’

Across the dual carriageway, on the other side of the junction, a line of cars in the far lane were filtering left onto a slip road. Rush hour traffic streaming through the junction, everyone on their way home. The low sun was in my eyes, but I caught a glimpse of a VW Golf. It did look like her car. Powder blue, five-door, same SpongeBob SquarePants sun shade suckered to the rear passenger window.

‘Good spot, matey. It does look like Mummy’s car.’

I buzzed my window down and felt the cool city air on my face. A gap in the traffic opened up behind the Golf as it accelerated away down the slip road. It was a 59 reg number plate. My wife’s car had a 59 plate. I squinted, trying to make out the letters.

KK59 DWD.

The number plate was hers – it wasn’t like her car, it was her car. There was the familiar buzz, the little glow in my chest I still got whenever she was nearby. The VW indicated left off the slip road and turned into the car park of a Premier Inn. It headed into the dark entrance of an underground car park and disappeared from sight.

She’ll be meeting a client, a work thing. Should probably leave her to it. She had been working late a lot recently.

‘Can we see Mummy?’ William said, excitement in his voice. ‘Can we can we can we?’

‘She’ll be busy, Wills. Doing work things.’

‘I can show her my certificate.’ William couldn’t quite pronounce the word and it came out as cerstiff-a-kit.

Honking from the car behind me as the traffic lights turned green.

‘Well . . .’

‘Please, Daddy?’ He was jigging up and down on his booster seat. ‘We could do a surprise on her!’

I smiled again. It was almost Friday, after all.

‘Yes we could, couldn’t we?’

I put the car in gear. Made a spur-of-the-moment decision that would change my life.

‘Let’s go and surprise Mummy.’

2

I was in the wrong lane to turn right and had to get across two lanes of traffic. By the time someone had let me in – cue more furious hooting – the lights had gone red again.

‘Where’s Mummy whizzing off to?’ William said.

‘We’ll catch her, don’t worry.’

My mobile, in its hands-free cradle, blinked blue with a Facebook notification. I pressed the screen and it brought up my picture of William in the school playground, clutching his first Superstar award from the reception class teacher. The post had four likes and a new comment from William’s godmother, Lisa: ‘Awww he looks so cute! What a good boy! Give him a kiss from me xx.’