“No one, honey. Eat your breakfast!” Sara caressed her daughter’s hair and turned back to the toaster where slices of rye bread were starting to smoke. “I have managed to get a couple of hours to work this afternoon. My mom’s coming. She might take the kids to the pool.”

“Yaaaay, the pool!” Meriem squealed with joy. She jumped up, accidentally knocking over her bowl.

Sara swiftly found a rag and wiped the milk up off the floor.

“Look now! Ugh, as if it wasn’t messy enough around here.”

Jeppe tried to take the rag from her, but she waved him off. Meriem started crying.

“Okay, enough. No harm done. I’ll give you a new one. See?” Sara hurriedly scooped more oatmeal into a bowl and got out the milk.

Amina came in and leaned against the kitchen table with her arms crossed.

“Did I hear you right that Grandma’s taking us to the pool? I’m not up for that!”

Jeppe got up and put his cup in the sink. “Well,” he said, “I’d better be off.…”

Sara shot him a look and turned back to her eldest daughter.

“I hear what you’re saying, Amina, but you’re still going. I don’t want you to forget how to swim.”

“As if that has anything to do with it!” Amina scoffed. “You just have to work.”

Jeppe stopped in the doorway and said, “Remember, we’re having dinner with my mother tonight.”

“What?” Amina glared at him with her mouth hanging open.

“I told you about this, young lady.” Sara waved to Jeppe over her shoulder.

“You did not! Why doesn’t anyone ever ask me what I want to do?” Amina snapped.

“Have a good day!” Jeppe found his bag in the hallway and walked down the stairs into Christianshavn’s fresh morning air. When he reached the street, he took a deep breath and exhaled.

JENNY KALIBAN BUTTONED her uniform and got ready to open Thorvaldsens Museum to the first of Sunday’s museumgoers. The ocher building stood like a temple in the shadow of Christiansborg Palace, its facade frieze depicting Thorvaldsen’s return to Copenhagen from Rome reflecting in Frederiksholms Canal. Bertel Thorvaldsen, the world-renowned sculptor, had helped design the building but died before it was finished in 1848. Now he lay buried in the internal courtyard of the museum, making it both an extensive collection of his art and his mausoleum.