My son asked me to sit on the rug and help with his model instead of bringing it to the table. I lasted longer than expected, although I had to move one leg out after it started tingling and he complained that I was blocking the pieces. The floor was firm against my hips. I could feel the morning's spin class in my thighs when I stood, but there was no hurry to be upright and presentable, no room watching. He handed me the finished model with both hands. I carried it upstairs carefully, then stretched out on my bed for a minute before starting dinner. My jaw was loose. I noticed because it usually isn't by that time of day.

My son's father arrived on time and took him out for the afternoon. Nothing to report, which should have been pleasant. Instead I felt irritated by how excited my son was, already in his shoes while I was checking whether he had packed a sweater. I do not begrudge him a good afternoon with his father. I begrudge being the person with the sweater while somebody else gets the grin. There, written. When they left I had the quiet house I usually say I need and spent the first twenty minutes listening for a door that was not going to open. I eventually put music on, loud enough that I did not have to hear the refrigerator.

I am looking at photographs of Mandeville to show my son and cannot find the view I remember from my grandmother's gate. Every image seems to be of a place somebody decided was worth photographing, not the ordinary road I used to walk. He asked whether it was far to school and I gave a distance, then realised I had never measured it; it was simply a long walk when I was small. My father could tell me whether the house still looks the same. I have been making a list of practical questions for a visit, but this is the one I actually want answered before anything is booked. I don't want to promise my son a place that exists only in my memory.