A tiny hand pokes through the garden fence, reaching for ripe strawberries. I pretend not to notice, busying myself with weeding the onions.
“Hello, Auntie Alice!” pipes up a high little voice.
“Alright there, sunshine,” I smile. “Come on in and help me pick these berries.”
The fence wire sags—I lift the bottom easily, and in walks my Angel—that’s what I call little Alfie. Right behind him, huffing and puffing, squeezes Buster, his massive bulldog, nearly twice his size. I plonk a big bowl in the middle of the strawberry patch. Alfie picks the plumpest, reddest ones. He’s got fair hair, bright blue eyes, and shoulder blades sharp enough to cut paper—like wings, really. Hence the nickname. He’s five. Bright as a button, kind as they come.
“Alfie, why was your mum cross this morning?”
“Oh, she wanted to paint the kitchen chairs, and I spilled the paint,” he admits. “Was tryin’ to give Buster’s kennel a lick o’ colour and knocked the tin over.”
“Well, that’s no disaster. We’ll have a cuppa, then pop to the shop for more.”
My little Angel washes his hands without being told and plonks himself by the window—his favourite spot. He picks strawberries with cream and a still-warm scone dusted in icing sugar. Soon, he’s got a proper powdered moustache. Buster flops onto the doormat, knowing the drill. He gets a cheese scone, which he eyes mournfully—*Is that it? Thought I rated a fry-up*—until I slide him a bowl of stew. Forgiveness granted, he tucks in.
An hour later, the three of us trot back from the shops with two tins of paint: white and green. Sky’s blue, sun’s blazing. I nip home to change, pack the leftover strawberries and scones. Outside Alfie’s house, his gran sits on the step—blind these last two years. My Angel adjusts her headscarf just so, tucks a stray curl behind her ear. I hand her a bowl of berries (her favourite).
On the patio, we paint the chairs white, then Buster’s kennel green. Alfie’s chuffed; Buster couldn’t care less.
Back from her shift at the roadside café (two miles away), Ellie—Alfie’s mum—praises his handiwork and calls us in for tea. Alfie guides Gran inside, feeds her rice pudding meticulously, lets her sip her own tea—extra sugar, one caramel. She finds her way round fine; knows every creaky floorboard. Ellie works late if it’s the evening shift. The lad’s her right hand.
I watch Alfie shovel down buttery porridge, gulp sweet tea, then bolt for cartoons. A boy? Or already a man? Maybe both.
He sweeps floors, washes up, helps Gran dress, chops firewood (two logs at a time), fetches water (bucket brigade style). Loves that daft dog, bawls if scolded unfairly, laughs like a loon splashing in the brook, sending sunlit spray everywhere.
Later, I tell Ellie, “Go easy on him. He’s got pride, y’know. Praise him—he’s earned it.”
She sighs about bills, her mum, the pittance she earns.
I say, “You’ve a roof, family, work, a cracking lad. Count blessings, not neighbours’.”
She smiles, waves me off.
Turns out my lessons stuck—by five, Alfie read *The Snow Queen* aloud to Gran. Still nights, we’d amble to the brook with fishing rods. Sun like a ripe dandelion clock, sinking slow, painting clouds gold. Fish never minded our chatter; soon enough, a couple twitched in the bucket. Supper for my old tomcat.
…Today my Angel visited. Proper grown now—forty-two, a surgeon. Still tends his mum and gran’s graves, then turns up here, arms full of treats. The world calls him *Dr. Alex Hart*, but I know better. Still my Angel—broad-shouldered, gentle. Any season, he’ll plonk a punnet of strawberries on the table, slide into his spot by the window, grin over tea and warm scones. Smokes a fag on the step before leaving, hugs me tight—wings and all.
