Robert Innes came to the house in the May. He is sixty-one and he brought a plant. He stood in our kitchen and told us the bit he had not been asked for in 2022, which is that the young man had looked up when he arrived and said “she’s all right, she’s not hurt” before he said anything about himself.
And the last thing.
In the June, on a Tuesday, I dropped her at school.
And at the gate she turned round, the way she does, and she said: “Don’t forget me!” and ran off in with her book bag flapping.
She does not know where she got it. I have asked her, carefully, twice.
She thinks it is just a thing people say when they say goodbye.
In our house it is. It has been since 1999, when a boy of seven decided it was funnier than “bye”.
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