Sarah turns to her. “The world is a fearful place,” she says evenly. “It was not my job to lie about that. It was my job to try to make it safer. If you had your own child you’d know.”

The comment lands. Twists. Does its work.

“I was pregnant once,” says Lissa quietly. “With Declan.” She turns back to the fence, where a tiny insect crawls across the flaking green paint. “It wasn’t easy. The decision. I thought it would be, but it wasn’t. But I couldn’t have done it. Not with Declan. Not on my own.”

“My god. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I felt stupid for letting it happen, I suppose.”

“And why didn’t you keep it?”

Lissa exhales. “I was young and selfish and I wanted to have my life. I wanted to work. I didn’t want a child who felt in the way.”

Her mother is silent, then she says quietly, “Is that how you felt? Is that how I made you feel?”

“Sometimes. Often. Yes.”

Sarah shakes her head. “That was never how I felt about you.”

“Really?”

“Truly.” Sarah regards her, steadily. “But I had to live my life. All my life. Otherwise I would have been no mother at all.”

Lissa nods. “I understand,” she says. And standing here, her hands threaded through this fence, she finds she does.

After a moment she speaks again. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“What for?”

“That you’re not a grandmother. You would have been a wonderful grandmother.”

And she would—she would have been magical. That would have been the right distance to love her from. To have been loved.

“Thirteen,” says Lissa. “My child would have been thirteen.” And she finds she is crying, really crying, her shoulders heaving, the sobs coming in shudders. Her mother steps towards her and folds her into her arms.

After a long moment, Lissa pushes the heels of her palms into her eyes and Sarah takes her arms away. Then they turn and walk back through the copse onto the Common and Lissa is glad of the space, the fresh air. In the distance a herd of cows is visible on the flatland. As they grow closer it is clear that they are in the middle of the runway, some standing, some lying. “Look at that.” Sarah chuckles. “You wouldn’t get many warplanes past those ladies.”

The wind is high now. Sarah’s hat is whipped off her head; Lissa runs to fetch it from where it has landed in a nearby bush.

As she walks back slowly towards her mother, she thinks, It is here—the catastrophe. My mother is dying. I am losing my mother. Soon my mother will be gone.

“Hold it a moment, would you?” says Sarah.