I had three or four sentences ready by the time I went up.

I knew which detail I would lead with — the empty stand — and I knew which one I would hold back for the end, which was the tin.

I had worked out that the line about wood and wire was the line, and I had decided to attribute it accurately rather than tidy it up, which I was proud of.

I had, in other words, within six hours of carrying a box onto a struggling family’s porch, begun to convert my own child’s private act into a story with me in it.

I went to sleep at about ten past eleven feeling better than I had felt in a year.