“Excellent,” Mum says. “Keep her fed and hydrated and don’t ask stupid questions. That’s your role.”
“Noted.”
“And how areyou?” she asks then, tone shifting just enough that I know she actually wants the answer.
I slow my pace a little. “I’m… good. Truly.”
“Truly,” Mum repeats. “That’s a loaded word.”
“I’ve been teaching,” I say. “Photography. Just a few hours a week at Declan’s school.”
“Oh,” she says, interested now. “Teaching,teaching?”
“Yeah, proper teaching,” I confirm. “Teenagers. Cameras. Opinions.”
She hums thoughtfully. I can picture it. The mental filing system whirring.
“And you like it.”
“I really do,” I admit. “More than I expected. Enough that I’m thinking about doing it for real. Getting the teaching degree.”
There’s a pause.
“That makes sense,” she says at last.
“Does it?”
“Yes,” she replies simply. “You’ve always been good at explaining things. And you like watching people get better. You just pretended for years that you didn’t.”
She’s not wrong. Annoyingly.
“It’d mean going back to uni for a year,” I say. “Part-time. Add the qualification.”
“And does that idea terrify you?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Mum says. “If it didn’t, I’d be concerned.”
I laugh. “You’re very calm about this.”
“Geoffrey,” she says, “you’re finally talking about something that sounds like it fits you. Why would I panic?”
That lands, warm and solid.
“And it works with… everything else,” I add, careful but honest. “Being around more. Being present.”
She doesn’t need me to spell that out.
“I like the sound of that,” Mum says softly. “Very much.”
I can’t stop the big grin appearing on my face.
“And,” she adds briskly, because this is still my mother, “you’ll let me know when you apply.”
“That wasn’t a question, was it?”
“Absolutely not.”
