“The thing of it is, I think I’d rather keep busy, if it’s all the same?” Sally’s cheeks have turned very red. “Keep my mind off things.”

She clamps her lips shut, her eyes darting upstairs. She must sense that Hugh doesn’t talk about it and doesn’t want to cross that line, but I can see in the tension in the corners of her lips that it’s on her mind and has been for some time.

She believes in the Day.

“No, of course. Whatever you’d prefer,” I say brightly. “I mean, the kids will be grateful not to have to eat my cooking, to be honest.”

“You’re cooking?” Charlie says, aghast. He lets go of my leg and backs away. “Noooooo!”

I shrug broadly. We’re a regular comedy routine around here.

Sally winks, her color returning to normal. “I’ll get to it, then. Avery’ll be over shortly to see to the little ones, and I can bury my head in the larder and see what we can put together.”

“I can manage them,” I say, laughing lightly. I’m their mother, after all. And yet Emma’s climbing the furniture and Charlie’s trying to push me into the wall and Max is drooling onto my boots and I’ve been home less than five minutes and I’m already ready for a break.

Sally’s eyes crinkle. “She likes to do it. And she wants the distraction too.”

They’re not related by blood that I know of, but Sally’s always doted on Avery like a substitute grandmother. It’s the way of things here. When there are vacancies, we fill them.

I turn toward the tall western windows and see Avery making her way across the long lawn in a blousy floral sundress, the overgrown grass turning her usually elegant gait into the clomp of a normal teenager.

She was a promising ballerina until a few years ago. I remember her as a reedy tween, practicing stretches against the school fence, toe to her ear, everyone’s jaw dropping. She went off to study at an elite school in Cardiff, still going despite the war, but two weeks in, a boy dropped her, and her ankle snapped in a way that’ll never be fully repaired.

Poor Avery’s been a little adrift since she got back. Her on-off local boyfriend’s away at war and not always able to answer emails, and her future’s a question mark. She works part-time at the village school, but right now, all the kids are gone except for mine.

Except for mine.

My heart flips. Avery picks her way toward the stone steps, her blond hair blowing behind her like a banner.

It’s the first time I’ve realized it in any practical sense. That’s why it’s so quiet here today. Everyone else sent their children to Sunnan. Only my children are still here. And Avery herself, eighteen now, still practically a child. There’s a wrongness about it. They’re not where they’re meant to be.