My phone rang while I sat there.

Brenda asked whether I would approve a revised staffing plan.

We discussed two positions, a training budget, and a contract deadline.

It was an ordinary work call, and I loved its ordinariness.

Before driving away, I spoke aloud to the younger woman I could almost see in that upstairs window.

‘You did not fail,’ I said.

‘And you don’t have to win an argument from eight years ago to prove it.’

When I reached home, the children were in the backyard trying to build a miniature obstacle course.