‘Yes, Daddy.’ She opens her mouth in a huge yawn.

‘It’s beautiful, Alice,’ I say. ‘Thank you. I will feel happy every time I look at it.’

She and I make a game of putting the sketch pad and crayons away, then Zac scoops her into his arms. She is so delicate and light. She rests her head on his shoulder and snuggles against him, sticking her thumb in her mouth and closing her eyes.

‘There’s one other thing.’ He balances Alice with one hand and rummages in the box with the other. He holds out a pouch of quilted ivory silk, tied with a matching ribbon. ‘Please.’

Inside is a charm bracelet, made of some kind of white metal. The charms alternate between white and yellow gold. One bead is engraved with a tiny angel, another with a butterfly, and still another with a miniature pair of footprints. There are hearts too, near solid but for a small tunnel that the bracelet passes through.

‘The hearts each have a tiny chamber in them. I put some of her ashes inside. The one with her initials has a strand of her hair.’ He hesitates. ‘If you don’t want it, I’ll understand.’

It makes me think of eighteenth-century novels, and the endless list of funeral jewellery and rings made of hair that dead characters bequeath to those who survive them.

‘That is so macabre,’ Milly used to say, whenever I went on about how sad it was that we no longer do this.

I never told Zac how I felt about this lost tradition. In some ways he truly knows me. But in others . . . well, there are others he has never come close to imagining.

I slip the bracelet on my wrist. ‘I do want it.’

‘The rest of her ashes are with Peggy. I thought you might want to bury them with your parents, or scatter them near there, maybe in the sea. It’s for you to decide.’

‘What about you?’

‘I didn’t just hurt the two of you, Holly. I hurt myself too.’ He pushes up the sleeve of his shirt. Around his wrist is a narrow band of white metal, with a large oval capsule. ‘There’s a chamber in the bead like the ones in the charms. It binds me to her.’ He lowers his voice. ‘It also binds me to you. I hope you don’t mind. If you do, you can have this one too.’

‘No. You keep it, Zac.’ I meet his gaze and he flushes.

‘I’m so glad you came.’

‘Me too.’ I touch Alice’s hair, and she opens her eyes. ‘I don’t want to say goodbye to you, little birthday girl.’ I slide my booted foot from the bench.

‘Big.’ Alice is fully awake again. ‘Big, big, big.’

I laugh. ‘You’re right. Big birthday girl.’

‘Don’t,’ says Zac.

‘Don’t what?’ I say, though I know exactly what he means.