“I’m going to find you,” Susan said, crossing the living room. A rustling from down the hall. Susan smiled as she made her way to a guest bedroom.

“Ahem,” a wee voice whispered.

Susan turned and saw the tip of a child’s shoe sticking out from under the bed.

“I wonder where you could be.” Susan’s cane clumped over the floor.

The foot wiggled.

Susan lowered herself, disregarding pain in her kneecaps. She plucked off the boy’s shoe and tickled his foot.

“Aaaahhh!” Hugh giggled.

Susan grabbed the boy’s chubby calves and slid him out from under the bed.

Hugh squeezed her. “You cheated!”

“I did no such thing,” Susan said, helping Hugh put on his shoe.

“I’m it!” he proudly proclaimed.

Susan marveled at Hugh’s delight in being caught. And at how much he resembled Bertie. Stocky frame. Small barrel chest. His legs, adorably bowed, like the forearms of a pug.

Hugh ran outside and shouted, “Olly olly oxen free!”

Susan, returning to the living room, looked out the window and saw Evie, a thin, wiry girl with curly chestnut hair, galloping over the rows of sea lavender. She stepped on asters, squishing their stems, and sprinted toward the porch. Susan smiled. Where a garden once grew bland cabbage and root vegetables, it now contained a variety of flowers. After the war, she’d lost her taste for homegrown food and relished buying her groceries in a store, without the necessity of a ration book.

They played two more rounds of hide-and-seek. Then Susan made lunch—leftover lentil soup, crackers, and tall glasses of Irn-Bru.

“Mother doesn’t let us drink soda,” Evie said, dipping a cracker into her Irn-Bru.

Hugh took a big gulp, then burped.

“Hugh,” Evie said, giving her brother an elbow.

“Sorry,” Hugh said.

Susan took a drink of her soda—a sweet, citrusy orange concoction. She much preferred a glass of water or a cup of black tea. But she was glad to have made the purchase, if only to create a memory.

They spent the afternoon, as they usually did during the children’s visits, with the pigeons. Along with the loo, the loft was one of the few surviving remnants on the property. Although the structure had been reduced to warped and rotted boards, Susan had had it restored by a local handyman. Except for a plastic grain barrel and the fact that there were only a dozen pigeons, the loft looked much as it did before the war.

Unlike their mother, Clover, who seemed to have an innate fear of feathered reptiles, Hugh and Evie adored pigeons. Often during the children’s visits, they’d each select a pigeon, tie a color-coded ribbon around its leg, then take a road trip to Clacton-on-Sea. Without the aid of cages, there were occasional droppings on the seats and several episodes of pigeons flying freely about inside the car, which required them to keep the windows rolled up. After arriving in Clacton-on-Sea, they’d toss their respective pigeons into the air, jump back into the car, and race home. But they never knew who had won. The pigeons always arrived first. And Evie and Hugh never seemed to mind, since Susan always stopped on the way home for ice cream.