Esther followed the voice into the kitchen and found the three men standing there, in a line, as if presenting themselves to her. Thomas, then the younger brother, George, and the father, Ivan. All in their Sunday suits, like it was a special occasion. Thomas introduced the other two, but no one offered to shake her hand, the other two standing awkwardly straight with their arms by their sides. Big men, all of them, tall and wide. All shoulders and belly, red skinned and hard.

Thomas took her bag and set it against the wall, near a door with a stout lock, then said, “I suppose you should get started. There’s spuds and beef for a roast in the larder.”

She remained still for a moment, then moved toward the door with the stout lock.

“Not that one,” Thomas said, and pointed to another on the far side of the kitchen. “That one there.”

She crossed to the larder, opened it, and found a sack of potatoes on the floor, a crate with carrots and turnips on a shelf, and a joint of beef resting on a slab of marble to keep it cool. Her hands shook, so she clasped them together. I don’t know what to do, she thought, and fear threatened to become panic. What do I do?

“Here,” a gentle voice said. She turned her head and saw Ivan next to her. He reached past and dragged the sack of potatoes out of the larder. They gave off the smell of dark soil as they rolled against each other.

Ivan pointed a thick finger. “There’s a knife in thon drawer, and get the two big bowls out from the sideboard. Put the peelings into one, wash the spuds in the sink, and then put them in water in the other.”

Of course. Peel them. Everyone knows how to do that. Esther exhaled her relief and set to work.

An hour later, under Ivan’s guidance, she had peeled and cut a generous batch of potatoes for boiling over the wood stove, seared the beef in a pan, and placed it into the oven to roast. The kitchen hummed like all kitchens should, and the smells fetched up memories of her own home, before her father had left them, when her mother would happily spend a Sunday afternoon preparing food for their small family.

Thomas and George had disappeared, she didn’t know where to. Ivan remained, sitting at the table, packing tobacco into a pipe, toying with it, but never lighting it. He watched her with a cool stillness that seemed to crawl beneath her clothing, next to her skin. She fought the urge to brush her fingertips across the back of her neck, to shoo away some imaginary touch.