Not the Mogerts, though. They had beaten her down, but Bell cracked a wry smile at the sight of her adopted family, the chaos amidst the calm: Max illegally parked, hazard lights flashing as he frantically disgorged almost the entire contents of their home onto a small flatbed trailer one of the crew had brought over to them. Hanna was talking to the captain, who was nodding at something she was saying and looking over her shoulder at Max’s efforts. Linus was leaning against the lamp post, still absorbed in the game on the iPad, the girls having seemingly made up and Tilde examining something on Elise’s palm.

Bell rode up to Max, who had by now worked up a sweat. She left the scooter beside a bench for the next punter and helped him place the last of their luggage onto the trailer: a fishing net and a guitar.

‘You play?’ she asked in surprise, as together they followed the crewman across the cobbles. She’d never heard anyone in the house playing an instrument before; they were a creative family, but not particularly a musical one.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Not me, no.’

‘Oh good, you made it,’ Hanna said, turning to them both, and Bell wasn’t sure to which of them her comment was directed.

‘Yes,’ Max sighed, removing his glasses and rubbing the sweat off his face. He was dressed in shorts and a linen shirt, driving shoes with no socks; he looked ready for a morning on a boat, rather than sitting alone in a large, empty house, working at the kitchen table. Not for the first time lately, Bell felt sorry for him.

She saw how his gaze snagged and caught on Hanna, as though to look at her was somehow illicit.

‘Come on, kids, say bye to Daddy,’ Bell said quickly, deciding they needed privacy and hustling the children towards him for alternately bashful (Linus) and exuberant (the twins) hugs.

‘See you in a few days, Max,’ she said with a brisk nod as the kids crossed the gangplank ahead of her. She would be getting on the same ferry he’d be disembarking from on Friday afternoon. She hurried the children into the boat, sighing as they automatically ran up to the food counter and pleaded for muffins. Getting them apples instead, she also ordered coffees for herself and Hanna, glancing back as she reached into her pocket for change. Hanna and Max were standing on the gangplank, his hands on her waist, eyes locked. Even from a distance, it was evident the world had fallen away for them. Lovers in love.

‘Can we go on the top deck?’ Tilde asked her excitedly, pulling her back. ‘I want to make my face hot.’

Bell groaned. Such was the substance of her days. ‘Well, not too hot, I hope,’ she said, allowing herself to be led towards the stairs. ‘We wouldn’t want it melting off now, would we?’

The ferry pulled away with a peremptory dismissal of the maritime city, leaving it behind in its island chunks, the bright copper roofs and colourful, canopied windows of Gamla Stan quickly giving way to contemporary-looking tower blocks and duplexes, and then to ever larger and grander suburban houses. Bell felt the equation shift quickly, the solid mass of urban sprawl diminishing against the mercurial body of the vast sea, land breaking down into crumbs until it was water, water as far as the eye could see. It was an idyllic, sparkling blue under these clear skies today, but she had seen the archipelago turn on numerous occasions – brown and churning – and she knew this was a fragile peace.