It’s Charlie who reminds me on Saturday afternoon, pointing to the gap on the fridge where the invite should be. SpongeBob hovers there, empty-handed. I remember now taking it down to scribble Marianne’s details on it, but I can’t think what I did with it after that. I hunt through all the piles of paper in the kitchen but don’t find it anywhere. It doesn’t matter, though. Charlie has already memorized the details. He has a wonderful memory, how could I have questioned that?

It’s already half past one and the party is at three. I find him a pair of smart trousers and an ironed shirt to wear. He’s so excited, he can hardly stand still. We have to dash out to the corner shop to find a present, hoping there’ll be something decent in the limited selection.

Charlie rakes through the items on the shelves. ‘What about this?’ he says, holding up a set of paints and paintbrushes. ‘Molly likes it when we do art at school, I think she’d like to have something like this.’

I look down at my son, struck by his thoughtfulness, his empathy. The paint set is hardly the fanciest of presents – the paint looks cheap, the colours garish – but it means a lot that Charlie knows what Molly would like. I grab some wrapping paper, some ribbon too, and all together, it doesn’t look so bad.

We’re running so late that I book an Uber to take us to Molly’s house. Charlie recites the address to me and I type it into the app. It costs more than I expected, but I go ahead and book it anyway. How often do we get to go out like this? And isn’t that what the money from Mum and Dad is for anyway? For Charlie? I make a note to myself to transfer the amount from my savings fund once we get back home.

The taxi comes so quickly and gets us there so fast that in the end we arrive outside exactly on time. We scramble out of the taxi and I remember to rate and tip the driver. It’s a really nice house, Victorian terrace, flower holders on the windowsills, so different to our own flat up a flight of concrete stairs. I can see helium balloons tied to the front door, so I know we’re at the right place. Charlie has got the details spot on. The balloons bounce on their strings in the gentle breeze, and Charlie bounces with them. He’s a ball of excited energy. I stop and turn him towards me, straightening his shirt collar, which has got crooked from all his hopping about.

‘Okay then,’ I say, ‘here you go.’ I hand him the present so he can be the one to give it to Molly.