“Week on Monday.”

“So soon? And how long do you have?”

“Four weeks.”

“That’s decent then. And are they paying you well?”

“Not really. Enough.”

“Good,” says Sarah, putting her cigarette out in the nearest plant pot. “Good.” She claps her hands together. “Right. Hungry?”

“I’ll help.” Lissa goes to stand, but her mother waves her away.

“You sit. Enjoy the sun. It’s just coming around the house. Lovely this time of day.”

So she sits while her mother clatters in the kitchen. Sarah is singing snatches of opera. In the sky above, contrails purl and lace against the blue. It is hot. Lissa looks up at the house: three stories of Victorian brick. She can see the window of the room that used to be her bedroom. The attic skylight. Her mother bought the house with the settlement from Lissa’s father, thirty years ago now. She has never spent any money on it, never had any money to spend, only a teacher’s salary, enough for good food, for paints and materials, a holiday now and then. If she sold this house, her mother would be rich.

“Salad’s coming.” Sarah brings two steaming bowls to the table, heads back up the path and returns with a large wooden bowl. Bitter red leaves mixed in among the green, walnuts and goat cheese crumbled on top. There is olive oil in a separate bowl, with a pool of balsamic at the bottom. Good, chewy bread with salty butter. They eat for a while in silence, the sounds of the neighborhood around them: kids in wading pools, barbecues, people laughing, the dusty, easy end of the holidays; summer in the body, sun on the skin.

“And how’s everything else?” says her mother when she has finished, pushing away her bowl, then rolling and lighting up again. “How’s Hannah? How’s Cate?”

“Cate’s in Kent. I’m not sure really. I haven’t spoken to her for a while.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know. It happens like that sometimes.”

“Like what?”

Lissa shrugs. “We’ve sort of lost touch.”

“You must keep ahold of your friendships, Lissa. The women. They’re the only thing that will save you in the end.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Do,” says Sarah. She regards Lissa through the smoke. “I always admired Cate.”

“I know.”

“She has principles.”

“Really?” says Lissa. “I suppose she does.”

“And Hannah?” Sarah says.

“Hannah’s OK. I saw her the other night.”

“Is she still . . . ?”

“She’s doing another round of IVF, yes.” Lissa presses a hunk of bread into the bottom of her bowl.

Her mother tut-tuts. “Poor Hannah.”

“Yes,” says Lissa.

“That poor woman,” Sarah says again.

“Hannah’s not poor.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“I know,” says Lissa, “but it’s an inaccurate one. She’s pretty successful. She and Nathan. They’ve done pretty well.”

Her mother puts down her cigarette. “Goodness. You’re testy suddenly, Melissa.”