She’ll lay out a feast, buy a new dress, wear makeup for once. She hasn’t bothered for months, years even. Eric has never liked makeup. He thinks it makes her look like someone else; she is prettier without, he told her. At the time she was charmed, but she can’t help thinking it would be fun to look like someone else for a change.

“What about Ash’s other friends?” Eric takes a glass from her hands.

“I think he likes these ones the best. He likes their parents as well.”

Eric rinses the knives without replying, then slots them carefully into the dishwasher basket.

“All right, I’m fond of them too. It’s not like we know masses of people round here.” Eve addresses his back; she bends to stroke the dog’s ears. “It’s strange, but I feel as if we’ve known them for years.”

He nods without replying, so she stops talking, and they continue to stack the dishes side by side in silence.

Grace

“How was it today?” Grace asks.

“How was what?” Martin is comparing the prices of organic and ordinary bananas and doesn’t look up.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.” Grace puts a giant bag of potatoes in the cart and pushes it on down the aisle. Martin hurries after her.

“Do what?”

“Pretend you don’t know what I mean.”

He knows she’d want to hear about the session, she always does. She had wanted to see the children’s work for herself, and though she won’t ever admit this to Martin, she’d wanted that friendship with Eve. She’d met her before Martin did, but she can’t say that either, it would sound so childish. Back in the winter, when she was first considering whether to put Blake’s name down for the sessions, she went to Eve’s house to meet her. Eve had flung open her door and taken Grace’s hand in both of hers, her great ring flashing red in the frosty December sun. She’d seemed larger than life somehow, more colorful, more friendly, than most people Grace had met in England. “Hi, I’m Eve Kershaw,” she’d said, smiling a warm smile. “I’m thrilled you got in touch. I’m certain I can help your son.” She’d brought Grace into her brightly lit kitchen. She’d been brimming with hope and ideas; the hope was infectious. Grace had handed over the cash for a term’s worth of sessions there and then.

“We’ll chat after each lesson,” Eve had promised. “I’ll fill you in as we go.”

But then the sessions turned out to be on Sundays to fit with the children’s commitments. Sundays were workdays for Grace, extra long because of double time. That first visit was her only one; Martin takes the children instead and collects them too.

Grace pays for the groceries at the register and they wheel the bags to the car.

“Blake’s doing fine,” he tells her as they fill the trunk with the shopping. “Just fine.”

“You always say that; you said that about the knife in his shoe—”