My hand, holding the stump of a candle in a dish, shakes a little. I never know when she might pick up more than I want her to. Things go on in the night that I don’t always want to share with my mother. It’s those damaged eyes, I don’t know what’s going on behind them, and that scarred face. Silly and weak to be nervous of my own mother, I know, but I can’t help it. I still remember what her eyes used to look like – as blue as the Gola Lake in high summer. Yet when she touches my arm or hand, she’s still got that second sense that a mother seems to have, and sometimes I like to keep my secrets close. In any case, I step a little nearer.

“Son,” my mother croons, “what have you brought me?”

She chooses to live like a prisoner in this room deep in the heart of the tenement building. We have a few rooms on the second floor. A shuttered window overlooking the inner courtyard lets in a little sunlight (her eyes hurt if there is too much light); she wants only a bed, and in winter, a fire. My mother is sitting now in her spindle chair, cane propped nearby. Her long wavy hair, dark like all of us Cerels, is loose over her shoulders. Her face is turned towards me, and I step forwards quickly before she can call for me again.

Her hand is dry and warm when I put my own cold mitt into it. Then I put the candle dish on the floor and fish out the gift from a pocket of the oversized jacket I always wear. Mostly I visit her in the night if I’ve found something; otherwise I see her at mealtimes in the kitchen off the end of the corridor.

Ma holds out her hand, palm up. An expectant smile plays on her lips, tugging at the tear-like scars that run down her pale cheeks. And truth be told, I’ve brought the gift to see that smile. Placing the object in her palm, I watch her hands. She turns the object, viewing it from all angles with her fingertips. Then her smile broadens and she looks young again, like when I was a kid and would make her laugh with some silly antic.

“Ah,” she sighs.

Yep, it’s worth it for this moment. I took a big risk to get the button, but now the risk has paid off. A polished metal button from the uniform of a grunt – one of the junior Black Marks – with the outline of a bear impressed into its centre.