Ellen rings just as I’m about to prepare the dinner. Today I’m roasting a chicken, boiling fresh vegetables that I’ve prepared myself from scratch and making mashed potatoes the way Amber loves them. Plenty of butter and a tiny bit of white pepper. What seemed like an ordinary boring meal when I was growing up has become a treat in my busy world.

Ellen wants to know how we are all doing. She asks me about the boy and I tell her the little bit I know before cutting her short on the phone. Tom should be answering these questions, not me. As usual Tom’s not around.

When Amber arrives in from school she remarks on the smell of food cooking, like she’d never smelled food cooking before. I want to ask her if she contacted Kenny but I need to be subtle. Jumping down her throat the moment I see her will make her avoid me or worse, lie to me. Like her Dad.

By six o’clock we’re all sitting around the table, eating. Tom didn’t have much to say for himself when he arrived home and I made no effort to engage in conversation. What I want to say to him can’t be done in front of the kids. He spoke to the boys for a bit before going to the bedroom to change into his jeans and a T-shirt. Tom has the ability of carrying on like nothing unusual is happening.

‘Can I pull the bone?’ Cian says, stretching his neck to look at the chicken carcass on the counter top. He’s so bright that kid, he forgets nothing.

‘Sure,’ I say getting up from the table and pulling the wishbone from the chicken. Cian takes it from my hand and holds it out for Tom to pull on it with him.

Everyone smiles looking at Tom and Cian’s hands preparing to go to battle. This little flash of excitement lifts all our hearts and for a brief moment everything seems normal.

‘What are you going to wish for?’ I say, gathering the plates on the table.

‘He can’t tell, Ma, or it won’t come true,’ Amber says, in her all-knowing voice.

‘Oops.’ Putting the dirty plates by the sink I turn on the tap and let the warm water run over my sticky fingers.

‘I’m going to wish the scary woman stops looking in our window.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A woman with big green eyes and stringy black hair was staring in the window at my children playing. Cian describes her as looking like Coraline from some movie he saw.

We play down our reaction so as not to frighten him. The second time he saw her, which was today when I was upstairs, he told her to go away.