Maria returned several hours later and checked the Post Office tab. The words "Package delivered" stared back at her. Crap. She checked the other screen. Nothing. Would he reply? Her pestering the last couple of months he'd ducked and weaved, playing the usual game; distracting her or else pleading something else - anything really to cut the conversations short. It'd gotten to the point she could detect the precise moment of his departure on every occasion.

Her "boyfriend". What a strange thing this was to her, his acceptance of him by her sons. Used so long to her aloneness, they saw no wrong in this; no moral judgments aimed her way, only ever the jokes.

"How's your boyfriend?" or "He's not real you know! Nothing online is real mum." And the worst one, the one she constantly fought: "You take online things too seriously!"

Young and already cynical minds; well-used to the falsity of virtual personae and not trusting too easily, yet - perversely enjoying this mother; the gradual changes taking place these past months: Her coming out of seclusion, laughing - their mother laughing... at times uncontrollably - where once barely a smile registered despite their efforts to engage her, have her feel something - even a response to some crude video on YouTube. This new mother emerging - they were delighting in her silliness, a silliness passed on to them through her interactions with him; her optimism, again another by-product, her love of life... all they cared about really, the positive changes they were witnessing in her.

Her boyfriend... The word was cute in her mind too. Teenage cute, the kind of cuteness she'd never experienced. It had felt odd at first, hearing her sons utter this word. Did she in fact have a boyfriend? This connection with her Pepe - for within this name he was hers - it had taken her back, far back in time to the self who should have felt this then. When she was young and starry-eyed and - only she'd never really been that; her teenage years filled chasing distractions mostly, living in defiance and one might say outright rebelliousness against anything and anyone threatening to reach her, anyone threatening to control her.

She sat for long minutes, conjuring in her mind the scene over there. His reaction to the contents within the envelope mostly... staring in turn at his printed out face on her wall placed alongside the most exquisite words ever penned, in her opinion... Forget Shakespeare and Burns and even her beloved Irish poets. What he'd written her surpassed them all.

Do you know this? She'd asked his face one day. Do you know I birthed those words in you? Do they mean anything? As usual, he merely stared off into the distance of the mirror.

She'd giggled at his attempt at a 'selfie', the phone held out in both hands, the face - his craggy unshaven face - at odds with his perfectly groomed hair. The horizontal lines across his forehead and twin vertical ones between his brows mirroring her own... she'd read somewhere that these lines were signs of deep thinkers, ones caught up in ever pondering, examining - or maybe the result of deteriorating eye-sight and wearing cheap reading glasses? This was another common thing between them, unless this too was a lie. Did he lie to her? Sometimes she suspected half-truths... moments she cornered him, seeking vainly his depths. Walking through doors, she called it.

'Maria, dinner's ready!' She heard her mother yelling, her voice repeating the phrase several times in increasingly louder tones despite her own screamed out replies following hers.

'Coming!' She yelled out once more knowing she'd still not be heard, necessitating one of the boys dashing up the stairs and also repeating, "Mum, your dinner's ready". One last look at his face and reaching up to vainly muss his hair for it needed it, in her mind. Then she resumed her real life.