Eve is in her kitchen making bread; her hands knead and press and throw. The sound will travel up through the ceiling to the beds where the children drowse. They’ll remember this, the sound and the scent, the light through the curtains, feeling safe, being safe. Beyond the open windows, the garden rolls to the wood, the long grass fringed with sun. There’s warmth in the air already. Eve divides the dough into rolls and fills a loaf tin with the rest; she takes the croissants out and stacks them on a rack.

Everything is ready: books, piles of paper, the pencils for each child and the name-tags in bright blue ink: Poppy, Isabelle, Blake. She glances at the certificates hanging by the sink: Eve Pemberton, BA (Hons) in Primary Education; the smaller certificate means more, the diploma in teaching learners with dyslexia, the course she did online this year, for Poppy.

Eric comes into the kitchen; he reaches for a croissant, which disappears in a couple of bites. ‘Nervous?’

She pushes the lines of pencils on the table together until they meet with a little click. ‘A bit.’

‘I hope it’s worth it.’ He kisses her, the stubble scraping her cheek, and smooths a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘You don’t have to put yourself through this; school will sort Poppy, given time.’

She shakes her head and moves away, sliding the kettle on to the Aga. ‘Time isn’t on Poppy’s side. If you feel stupid, every day, every minute matters. I have to try for her sake. It might seem a little crazy but—’

‘You must do what your heart tells you to.’ It’s a favourite expression of his and it usually helps. He smiles at her; he’s hardly changed since they met twelve years ago, back when the garden was still her father’s and he was shaping beds and planting trees. His eyes are the same sky blue as they were that hot morning in June, the week before her finals. She’d been lying on a rug in her bikini making notes. Her parents’ cocktail party was in full swing on the sun-drenched veranda above; the babble of chatter and chink of glasses reached her hiding place behind a bed of roses. She could hear her mother calling her, thinly disguised impatience in that well-bred voice. Eric had almost stepped on her.

‘Now there’s a coincidence,’ he’d said, as he lowered the wheelbarrow. ‘I hate parties too.’