Somebody said something on the radio. He didn’t hear what as he was still in a land where he was a small boy who’d come down to the ground again and his mom had said something that he could no longer remember; he couldn’t remember any of it, but she had said something, and afterward he had spent a long time thinking about what she had said, how important it was to him, those last words she had said to him before walking out of the door never to come back.

She never ever came back.

He could feel his cheek was wet, like the windshield would have been if it had continued raining. He heard himself saying something now but didn’t know what it was.

He looked back at the children.

He could see the room again, it was later but he was still a small boy; he sat looking out of the window and there was rain on the windowpane, and he’d made a drawing of the trees outside that didn’t have any leaves left. His mom was standing beside the trees. If he drew a car, she was inside it. A horse, and she was riding it. A little child, and she was holding its hand. They were walking on grass where red and yellow flowers were growing.

He drew the fields. He drew an ocean on the other side of the fields.

Every night he made a bed for his mom. He had a little sofa in his bedroom and he made her a bed on it, with a blanket and a pillow. If she suddenly appeared she’d be able to sleep there. Just lie down without him needing to get the bed ready, it would be all done.

Now he rolled down the window and took a deep breath. Rolled it up again and started the engine and drove around the playground so that he could park right outside the entrance. He opened the door. There were several other cars around. He could hear the children’s voices now, as if they were sitting in his car. As if they’d come to his car, to him.