The grass was emerald bright after all the rain and badly in need of a cut. Michael had promised he would be round this week to do it.

When her husband Colin was alive, the garden was kept in an immaculate state. He spent hours out there, in all weathers, digging flowerbeds and tending their small vegetable patch.

Now and then she pulled up a weed or two, but she wasn’t able to do much these days and relied on Michael, for this and other little jobs about the place.

Sighing, she put the kettle on and then, from nowhere, she was sideswiped by a scene.

The two boys, aged maybe ten and five, playing football on that lawn. It wasn’t so tidy then; strewn with plastic toys, footballs, and cricket bats. This wasn’t one specific memory, just an ordinary afternoon that would have played itself out many times. It was so vivid on the canvas of her mind now, she felt as though she could step right back into it.

Liam, her little firecracker, was probably cheating again, running around his red-cheeked brother with a cheeky grin that meant he got away with an awful lot more than he should. Michael, always so concerned with fairness, would have been huffing and puffing with the injustice of it all. Liam wouldn’t have been able to resist stoking the flames, goading his big brother and maybe calling him a mean name. They would be fighting before she had the chance to rush out and prise them apart.

Michael was so much bigger and stronger than his brother, but would never really hurt him, even when he was pushed. But still they fought like cat and dog and at the time it drove her doolally.

She smiled now, remembering it. It felt as though those long days of the boys’ childhood would go on for ever. But no one told you that they would be gone one day.

She was always so tired then. Her supermarket job left her exhausted every day, with an aching back and sore feet. Little time for much beyond making tea and hanging out washing before sitting in front of the television.

Irene wished she could step back into that afternoon, just for one hour. She’d wrap herself in it, bathe in every single second. There would be no, ‘I’m too tired to play’ or, ‘Go and watch telly, boys, I’m busy.’ There would be cake and sweets and as much Coca-Cola as they wanted to drink. She wouldn’t even bother with the diet stuff. She’d play all day if that’s what they wanted.

She swiped at her eyes.

Silly old baggage.