On Father’s Day my millionaire son walked into my freezing apartment, saw the tinned soup on the table, and asked how I was managing on the eight thousand a month his wife sends me. I told him nobody sends me anything.

Neither of us said one word for about four seconds. The radiator clicked twice, which it does.

I said: Emmett, I have never received eight thousand dollars from anybody in my life. The church pantry has been keeping me going.

And the colour went out of my son’s face.

I have seen that man white twice in his life. Once at a hospital in 2015 and once standing four feet inside my own front door on Father’s Day.

He reached for his phone. He got about four digits into it.

And before he could do anything at all with it, my door opened and his wife walked in.

Thea stood in that doorway in a white wool coat with the keys still in her hand.

She has a key to that flat. I gave her one in 2022 and never gave one to my son, and neither of them ever remarked on that until this November.