Later, when they have been on the tour of the house, they sit in the living room, where peanuts and crackers wait in small bowls on the tables and a picture of Jim and Hayley’s wedding hangs above the fireplace. Hannah and her parents sit, slightly stilted, slightly hushed, perched on the edge of sofas—an audience waiting for the main actor to take the stage. There is the creak of the stairs and there she is, Hayley, standing in the doorway, plump with sleep, creamy-cheeked, a tiny parcel of humanity held in her arms. For a moment, no one moves; the tableau is too perfect: the soft-faced Madonna and child. Then: “Oh.” Hannah’s mother gets to her feet. Hannah watches as she sweeps the baby up from Hayley’s arms, her face beatific, transformed. “Rosie,” she breathes, “my lovely little Rosie!”

Hannah stands, makes her way over to the group, and sees Jim’s features on a tiny old woman’s face peering out from beneath layers of blanket. “Oh.” She stretches the tip of her finger to touch the baby’s cheek. “She’s so lovely, Jim. She looks just like you.”

Soon the baby starts to cry, and Jim gets to his feet. “You sit down, sweetheart,” he says to Hayley. “I’ll do the feeding.”

He comes back from the kitchen with a tiny bottle for his tiny daughter. Hannah watches him take her, the care with which he lifts her, the love and absorption on his face as Rosie takes the bottle and feeds. They are all silent, watching, listening to the sounds of suckling.

“Never did that in my day,” says Hannah’s father.

“Don’t know what you’re missing.” Jim looks up with a grin. “The oxytocin. It’s incredible.”

“Oxy what-what?” Their father beams.

SHE GOES TO bed when her parents do, at ten o’clock. On Christmas morning she wakes early, stands at the window, and looks out at the snow-covered fields. The rise of the moor beyond. The baby is lovely. The house is lovely. Jim and Hayley are lovely. It is exhausting, how lovely they all are. She can feel their compassion, their concern that this is all right for her: Hayley’s gentle, almost apologetic movements with her daughter. Their eyes on her when she takes the baby for a cuddle. Their collective in-breath, hoping Rosie won’t cry in her auntie’s arms. No one has asked her about Nathan. Have they decided among themselves that they won’t?

This house, with its thick stone walls, its low lintels, its view of the fields and the moor and the steel-gray sky, its family sleeping in the room next door, oppresses her. She does not want to be here. She imagines walking out, through the garden, onto the high, snow-flecked moor. The air would be pure and clean and scouring. She wants to be scoured.