“At breakneck speed. With bombs falling. But it had to be done.”

Eve hung up her coat and followed the happy sound of Harry’s voice as he played with Audrey’s son, Bobby. She found them sprawled on the rug in the living room, paging through a brightly colored catalogue. The boys were the same age and nearly the same size and might have been twins in their corduroy pants and plaid flannel shirts, except that Harry had ginger hair —a redhead, the Americans would say —and was friendly and talkative and boisterous. Bobby had inherited his father’s ebony hair and his mother’s shy reserve.

“What has you so charmed that you can’t even say hello to your mum?” Eve asked.

“Hi, Mommy.” Eve sighed inwardly at her son’s American accent and wording. It was her own fault, since she had brought him to the States as an infant. Bobby, having been here for a year and a half, was starting to adopt the same type of speech, but at least he still called Audrey “Mummy.”

Harry barely glanced up, as if he might miss something if he looked away for too long. “We’re picking out all the toys we want Santa to bring us from the Christmas Wish Book.” He pointed to the page, saying, “I want that airplane. Oooh, and that submarine, too! And I want this army truck and this tank and this motorcycle . . . We could play army, right, Bobby?”

“That would be fun!” Bobby laid his hand on the page for a moment as if claiming territory. “I want all of the trucks on this page —and especially this motorbus!”

Harry waited until his friend lifted his hand, then flipped to the next page. “I want this pickup truck. Look, it has lights that really light up! And wow, look at this steam shovel! We could dig holes with it!”

“I want one,” Bobby said. “This army jeep has real lights, too!”

Eve squatted beside the boys for a better look as they continued turning pages, gleefully pointing to fire engines and bulldozers and police cars. “It looks to me like you’re asking for every toy in the book.”

“Not the girls’ stuff,” Harry said, making a face. “We don’t want dolls!”

“Or baby toys,” Bobby added. “Just all of the boys’ toys on all of these pages.” Eve watched them flip through a few more pages, chorusing, “I want this and this . . .”

She frowned. “There isn’t room in this house for all of those toys. And besides, you have so many playthings already.”

“But they’re old toys, Mommy. These are new toys. We’re going to ask Santa for all of these new toys when we see him at the parade tonight.”

“The parade? That’s tonight?”

“Yep. Did you forget, Mommy?”