Anouk. Of the water; of the river. Her daughter who was about as different from Nora as a person could have been (though not in looks, no. Same legs too long for the rest of the body, same swan-like neck, same autumn hair). Her daughter loved nothing more than a good story. She was fascinated by this girl and what she was going to attempt.

Anouk. Did not come willingly to the city; pleaded with Nora to come north for the summer instead. Child of the river. A feral thing with sandy toes, cedar sap knotting her unbrushed hair, splinters in the flesh of her palms. Maybe in her pocket a paper-light chipmunk skull, shell fragments from a robin’s egg or a couple of acorns. She was a child who could tell the difference between the calls of the swift and of the sapsucker. She was not afraid of spiders.

A streetcar, the first of the morning, passed without stopping. Empty. Across the street and up a few doors, the Korean man who owned the corner store came out of the store in a bright white T-shirt tucked neatly into high-waisted jeans. He carried a tray stacked with containers of raspberries, his brown arms lean and strong. When he saw Nora, he waved and jogged across the street with a palm full of berries.

‘Thank you,’ she said, meeting him on her porch steps.

‘Nah,’ he said, his attention on the street as he crossed back again to his work.

The raspberries, wine-red, so sweet the taste caught in the back of Nora’s throat. Anouk. Had been going off every morning on her bike to swim in the Olympic pool. The exercise was good for her lungs but Nora worried about the humidity. And her skin was getting sun-pink – she wasn’t being careful. But Nora only had her for two months and she wasn’t going to spend it nagging.

Another streetcar wheeled up and stopped and swayed in its tracks, brakes exhaling, bell duh-ding. One person got off, and there was the electric whine as the streetcar powered up and moved on. Nora read about the swimmer. Today’s article, a round-up of what she had been eating to keep her calories high, to maintain a layer of fat for warmth in the cold water. For breakfast every morning, pancakes and four eggs. Doughnuts for snacks, homogenized milk on her cereal. The column quoted the girl as saying that, while she didn’t think other kids would believe her, sometimes she didn’t want the doughnuts. Or the cake. There wasn’t much fun in it when it had to be consumed in doses, like medicine.

Anouk, too, had to be convinced to eat more fatty foods, to keep the calories up because her body, her pancreas, was unable to process nutrients, to take the good stuff.

Anouk had been a long-limbed, skinny baby, always fractious with hunger. Couldn’t be fed by the breast because enzymes had to be added to the milk.