SHE IS SITTING on her bench, facing the river, where a low mist is rising from the water and a tangle of nettles clogs the bank. There is movement on the towpath now, a thin stream of humanity: joggers, early-morning workers, heads down, heading towards town. Tom is calm at least, a warm weight on her chest, face framed by a little bear hat. He woke again at five or so this morning and would not be placated, so they came out here. Her phone tells her it is almost seven o’clock, which means the supermarket will be open soon, which means there is somewhere dry to go at least, and so she stands and follows the banks of the little tributary, over the humped bridge, under the underpass and out by the parking lot. By the time she joins the small crowd outside the supermarket doors, it has begun to drizzle.

Tom whimpers in the sling and Cate shushes him as a uniformed woman comes out and casts a look to the sky, then goes back inside, and the doors slide open. The people stir themselves and follow, funneled through the bakery aisle where the heated air circulates the smell of sugar and yeast and dough. She makes for the baby section, filling her basket with several little foil packets. She bought these packets in ones or twos at first—always sure the next meal would be the one she prepared properly—now she buys them in bulk. Diapers too; at first she was sure she would use cloth, but after the trauma of the birth, she started using disposable ones and then came the move, and now here she is lifting huge packages of diapers into her basket, the sort guaranteed to take half a millennium to decompose.

It is a two-minute walk back home, past the trees encased in concrete and wire cages, the garbage can area with its padlocks, the parking lot with its barriers, the signs alerting you to the burglar paint on the walls. She reaches her front door and lets herself into the narrow kitchen. She puts down the bag, lifts Tom from the sling, and puts him into his high chair. She selects one of the little foil packages—banana and blueberry—and Tom holds out his hands for it as she untwists the seal and holds the plastic teat to his lips. He sucks away happily, like a little astronaut with space food.

“Morning.” Sam wanders in, hair mussed from sleep. He looks as though he slept in the clothes he wore last night—a faded band T-shirt and boxers. Straight to the teakettle he goes, without looking up; hand out to test the temperature, switch flicked, used grounds dumped into the sink, the French press barely rinsed before the fresh grounds are shaken in. The swaddled luxury of the morning trance—no point in speaking till the caffeine has entered the blood.

“Morning,” she says.