For hours after they were reunited in a hotel lobby in northeastern Paris yesterday, Brendan Brady kept saying the same thing to his mother Eileen: "I hope it's not a dream I've been found."
At first, the 42 year-old disabled Irishman's sang-froid even fooled his mother. "I just ran over and kissed him and hugged him. He was very laid-back. He said, 'Hi Mom', as if he'd just been down the road."
But in his mother's presence, the toll of Brendan Brady's ordeal began to show. For five days, he had lived on one croissant and water, slept on park benches and under bus shelters.
"After five or ten minutes, he got emotional," Eileen Brady said. "He never cries, but tears were flowing down his cheeks. He said, 'I want to go home. I want to go home.' He wants to feel safe again."
Brendan had no desire to leave his hotel room, where he sat propped up on pillows, his eyes sometimes tearing up silently as his mother spoke for them both.
Mrs Brady was amazed that her son had bought the €6 train ticket from EuroDisney into Paris. "I thought he might be out in the countryside. I didn't know he was capable of getting on a train alone," she said. "My worst nightmare was that no trace would be found, that I might not even get a funeral, because they hadn't found him in EuroDisney."
The widowed mother and son have lived alone since Brendan's sister Linda died unexpectedly of a heart attack two years ago, at the age of 34.
"I left her down in Ballyfermot to go into town," Mrs Brady recalled yesterday. "Two hours later, her boyfriend called and said, 'Go to the Mater Hospital'. By the time I had got there, she'd died. Brendan was very upset. She was in rehab too, but she had a milder form of handicap."
While Brendan was missing, "I kept praying to Linda," Mrs Brady continued. "I said, 'You have your daddy to look after. I need Brendan.' I just felt desperate. I kept saying to myself, 'It can't happen again'."
Brendan Brady's fears were more banal than his mother's. He kept track of the days and despaired at missing the Manchester United-Arsenal match, and the Elvis convention at the Red Cow on Sunday night. "He has tickets to hear a group called 'Smokey' on the 30th, and he was afraid he'd miss that too," his mother said.
But Brendan didn't panic. He knew the Rehab group was scheduled to return to Ireland two days after he was separated from them. On Thursday, he assumed the group would take a ride on a bateau-mouche, as pre-arranged. He found the boats and waited, but his friends never came because they were searching for him.
Wasn't he cold without a coat? his mother asked. Only in the early hours of the morning. Why didn't he tell the American couple he met at a bus stop that he was lost? she asked. "They had a place to go to," he told her.
On Friday, Brendan found a phone booth that took coins instead of electronic cards. He rang his mother's number in Dublin. "Ma, your line was busy," he complained yesterday.
Despite Brendan's exhaustion, his mother said he never talked so well as in the hours after their reunion. "He has a lovely colour from being out in the sun," she laughed. "Looking at him, you'd swear he'd been on a week's holiday!" Mrs Brady said she was incredibly grateful "to Rehab, the media, and the whole of Ireland, and the priests in Ballyfermot and Palmerstown who said so many Masses for Brendan".
But most of all, she is grateful for that moment on Monday when a Paris policeman found him.