Even though we have Benji, Isaac is scared of dogs. As we near what he calls the Dog House, he runs back and takes my free hand. The yappy terrier there barks furiously on cue and Isaac flinches, his fingers tightening around mine.
‘Wait at the lights,’ I remind him, once we leave the danger zone and he lets go. He zigzags along the pavement, holding the lighter out as if it’s a lightsaber or a remote control or a magic wand, muttering something I can’t catch. He’s slight and dark-haired, skinny like Lori, pale like me. Both he and Finn have inherited Nick’s deep blue eyes with those flecks of gold. I never tire of staring at them. Mind you, with the lads that depends on them sitting still long enough, which is especially rare for Finn.
We collect Benji and head straight back out. Stopping for a snack invariably descends into a rerun of the morning’s mission to leave the house intact – things unravel so quickly – so I leave the boys in the drive and fetch the dog and his ball.
Finn throws the ball over and over, not necessarily in the direction he intends it to go but that doesn’t matter to Benji. We stop at the playground and tie Benji up at the railings while the boys mess about on the slide and swings. Isaac wants to go on the stepping stones but he isn’t quite brave enough to leap from one wooden block to the next so he jumps down onto the mulch between them, then clambers up again.
‘See the heron?’ I say. The bird is almost overhead, coming from the pond. Isaac looks up.
‘Hey, Finn,’ I call across. He’s on his back, on the roundabout, his feet dangling over the edge onto the ground, slowly walking it around. ‘See the heron?’
We watch it fly out of sight. ‘Time to go,’ I say.
‘It flies high,’ Finn says, as I’m untying Benji.
‘Yes.’
‘Like Lori in an airplane.’
‘Aeroplane. That’s right. And where’s Lori gone?’
‘Thailand.’
‘Why’s it called Thailand?’ says Isaac. ‘Do they all wear ties?’
‘No. Nice idea but it’s a different spelling, a different word.’
‘I made a card for her,’ Finn says, ‘with all of us on, me and Daddy and you and Isaac and Lori and Benji.’ He grasps my hand. ‘Did she like it?’
‘She will. She’ll open the case and there it will be. And there’s a picture from Isaac, too,’ I say.
Isaac is crouched at the edge of the path. ‘A feather.’ He holds it out to me. Black with a metallic glint in the light.
‘That’s lovely.’
Nick gets back later than usual, staying at the office to make up the hours he missed the day before. I’ll wait to eat with him, feed the boys first. While the pair of them watch television and Isaac draws herons and pterodactyls over and over again, I go up to strip Lori’s bed.
