Isabelle nods. Her mother does love to lie on the hammock when it’s nice out; her father has chosen a gift that might not be so bad after all. She looks at the box in her father’s hand, and he holds it out for her to see.

“It’s a pedometer,” he says. “It counts the number of steps you take.”

Isabelle looks at the thing skeptically. She pictures Christmas morning, her mother opening the pedometer with disgust, her father sheepish, Isabelle herself filled with shame that she allowed him to purchase this gift knowing how it would be received.

“What do you think?” her father asks. Isabelle sucks in a breath through her teeth and shakes her head. “No? You don’t think Mom would want one of these?” Isabelle wrinkles her nose and shakes her head again. “Oh,” her father says, looking a little dismayed. “Well,” he says, “there’s also this shovel-type device, specifically for planting bulbs, and the good thing about it is that you don’t have to bend over. Better for the back.”

But Isabelle is only half listening. She has let her gaze wander back to the Apache Tear necklace.

“What did you find, Belle?” Her father takes a step closer to her and peers through the glass of the counter at the jewelry beneath. Isabelle points at the Apache Tear. “For Mom?” he asks.

She nods.

He bends closer to the necklace.

“It is pretty,” he says. “You think Mom would like it?”

Isabelle nods again; she knows that her mother would like it. She knows that her mother will.

III

Isabelle has never liked Sunday afternoons. There is something about them that fills her with dread. She used to think it was because she knew she had to go to school the next day and start a whole new week, but she’s concluded that the problem with Sunday has to do with Sunday and nothing else. There is something dark and lonely about those hours of the afternoon after they’ve returned to the city but haven’t yet gathered for dinner, an awkward patch of time between day and evening that Isabelle is never sure quite how to fill. Today, sitting in the bath, she is even more eager than usual for the evening to begin; tonight, they will decorate the tree that she and her father chopped down. She sinks low into the water thinking about it, letting the water rise above her lips.