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eat it all up!’ Grace echoed.
    ‘I certainly will. But I’m just going to make a nice cup of tea to drink with it.’
    ‘Make sure you bring your cookie back in here so we can watch you eat it. That’s the best bit!’ Grace laughed.
    Tom disappeared towards the kitchen and his voice drifted back along the hallway. ‘I was going to get the lamb out of the freezer for you, but you can P-I-S-S-O-F-F.’ Tom spelt out the endearing phrase to his wife; that was the benefit of having a small child who was too young to spell.
    Grace laughed, which made Chloe laugh too. ‘I love you, Chloe.’
    ‘Loveoo, Mummy.’
    Grace swallowed. Hearing those words uttered by her child still had the power to melt her heart.

3
    People suffering from sepsis sometimes pass no urine in a day
    Grace, Chloe and Tom watched as the little car chugged into their driveway. Chloe was beside herself with excitement. She trotted alongside the green Austin A40 Cambridge and banged on the passenger window. In her hand she clutched the painting that she had made for her grandma, now slightly ripped where her fingers had pushed through the paper when it was sodden with wet paint, but her creation was no less beautiful for it.
    Olive heaved herself out of the passenger seat in the rather ungainly manner typical of many women of her height and stature. She was as usual resplendent in many mismatched layers, topped today with a grey cashmere wool cardigan of indeterminate shape, which was fashionably draped over one shoulder and held in place with a large kilt pin. Three strings of green glass beads sat on her generous chest. Mac, her husband, elegantly unfurled his long legs and raised his arms over his head to crack his back after the rickety journey. The Austin certainly looked wonderful, but it lacked the modern upholstery and suspension that made long journeys comfortable. Mac was dressed as if he had just come from a cricket match, as usual paying no heed to the season or temperature, in cream slacks, straw panama hat and cricket jersey, with a striped tie loose at the open neck of his shirt. For him, whether it was November or indeed January was immaterial; in sartorial terms, it was permanently August.
    ‘Hello! Hello, my little darling!’ Olive beamed at her one and only grandchild as she scooped Chloe up into her arms and covered her freckly little face in kisses.
    ‘Yuck, Grandma, stop! I don’t like that! Have you got me some sweets?’
    Olive roared with laughter at the unabashed frankness of her granddaughter. She reminded her so much of Alice at the same age. ‘I might just have, my darling. Let’s go and dig in my enormous bag…’
    Chloe glanced back towards her grandpa. Though preoccupied with the promise of sweets, she called over her shoulder, ‘Hello, my grandpa!’ and waved her chubby hand in the air.
    ‘Hello, my little one!’ He smiled after her as she disappeared into the kitchen. It was what he had always called her, his little one, the littlest of his girls.
    Mac walked forward and embraced his son-in-law and ruffled his hair, in the way that only an upright man in his eighties can do with true confidence.
    ‘How’s it going, son? Keeping chipper?’
    ‘Kind of, Mac. Bit nervous about tomorrow, but trying not to be. Don’t want Chlo to pick up on it, but I really don’t like the idea of her having an anaesthetic.’
    ‘So I gathered from your call. You’re doing the right thing, Tom; it’ll all be fine. The medics do this day in and day out and it’ll be great for Chloe to come out the other side, no more rotten sore throats.’
    ‘That’s what I said,’ Grace chipped in as she hugged her dad. The three of them followed Chloe and her grandma into the kitchen. ‘And if they offer to fix me with a quick onceover, I won’t say no! I’m knackered! The joys of parenthood, I guess. No chance of flopping on the sofa all weekend with Princess Pickle around.’ Grace yawned.
    ‘Ah, darling, that’s the kind of