This small fact releases memories. My mother in her galley kitchen in Baldoyle, making strawberry cheesecake. My mother crouched in the fields in Kinsealy, picking the berries. One for the punnet, one for me. The wide smile of her mouth stained red with juice.

My mother’s apron, carefully laundered, hanging on a hook on the back of the kitchen door.

“What was her name?” I ask Dad.

He looks at me. “Whose name?” he says. And just like that, she is gone.

My phone rings and I am alarmed to see that it is Hugh. Yes, we keep in touch, but it is usually a handful of phone calls at pertinent times of the year; birthdays and Christmas and Easter. So when his name flashes onto the screen of my mobile, I immediately imagine the worst. A road traffic accident. An abducted child. A terminal diagnosis. I excuse myself from the table and walk until I am out of earshot.

“Hugh? Is everything all right?”

“What the hell is going on, Terry?” He doesn’t sound worried. He sounds angry. And Australian. I hadn’t noticed that before. How Australian his accent has become.

“What do you mean?”

“I rang Dad’s nursing home and they told me he’s not there.”

“Did they tell you about the rats?”

“What?”

“There’re rats. In the nursing home. Well, they said vermin so I just assumed...”

“Why didn’t you let me know?” says Hugh, cutting through what he calls my conversational meanderings.

“I...didn’t want to bother you.” This sounds better than the truth, which is that it never occurred to me.

“And Brendan said you’ve hared off with Dad and that friend of yours.” He says the word “friend” in a derisive tone. It could be because Iris called him a misogynist once.

“Her name is Iris,” I tell him, “and I haven’t hared off. I just happen to be in France.”

“But you never go anywhere.”

“That’s not true.” Although it is. “Why did you ring the nursing home?” I ask.

“I always ring. Every week.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know that.

“I don’t know why I bother,” says Hugh. “He doesn’t have a clue who I am.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Hugh, I didn’t mean to worry you. I should have let you know.”

“Yes, you should have,” he says, but the anger is gone from his voice. “So how is the contrary old bastard?”

When Hugh says things like this, it makes me realize how long he’s been gone. Because Dad hasn’t been contrary in years. Or belligerent. Or scathing. He hasn’t been any of those things. He’s forgotten how.

Dementia has taken these things from him. Gifted him with kindness. Humility. Gentleness.

My mother was right. Every cloud does have a silver lining.

“He’s fine. He’s sitting in the sun with Iris and me, eating strawberries.”

“It’s well for you.”

“You better be careful, Hugh,” I say, not commenting on how much like our father—the before version—he sounds. “Or I might decide to hop on a plane to Australia next.”