She bends to Noah, running her hand over his leg. He whines when she feels around the left hip joint; perhaps she needs to get him checked out by the vet; family concerns flowing into the cracks in her marriage, filling them up and sealing them over, disguising the damage.

“The table’s finished.” Poppy appears in the kitchen, jerking her thumb at the window. There are two tables on the veranda, each set for six with candles already lit, colored glasses and beakers of flowers filled with meadowsweet and buttercups.

“Thanks, Pops. It looks lovely.” She puts an arm around her daughter’s shoulders and cuddles her close although the slim body is rigid with resistance. “Shall we push the tables together? That way we can all talk to each other.”

“Izzy said separate ones.”

“Okay.” She drops a kiss on the bright auburn hair. Don’t fuss, she tells herself, it doesn’t matter. It’s a party, anything goes. “So what are you wearing tonight?”

“Whatever. Jesus.” Poppy spins around and heads for the stairs. Eve crushes a basil leaf from the pot by the window, inhaling the peppery scent. She recognizes Izzy in Poppy’s words, in the way she’d turned her back. What did she expect? The two girls have become close, whispering in the lessons, disappearing together in the garden. They are friends, and friends leave their mark. Outside the candles glow in the dusk. It’s getting late, she should hurry.

“Let her be,” she mutters to herself. “Let her grow.” Children change and then change back. She’d wanted freedom for her kids, she should be prepared to take risks.

After her shower she dresses and inspects herself in the mirror. Her body isn’t thin like Melissa’s or shapely like Grace’s, but her arms are turning brown; the dusty pink of the new silk dress suits the color of her face. She doesn’t look like a thirty-four-year-old mother of three; she doesn’t feel like one either. Anticipation seethes in the pit of her stomach. She puts on eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara, lipstick; picks up her wrap and then steps back, looks at her reflection in the mirror and smiles.

Eric has started the barbecue; she hands him a beer. He drops a kiss on her shoulder, it feels like a truce although they haven’t fought. Perhaps that’s the trouble. Fairy lights sparkle in the olive trees, lighting the drive along its length to the front of the house, around the side, and all the way to the garage and barns at the back.

The girls appear with Ash. Poppy has glitter on both cheeks. Sorrel has smeared some unevenly on her forehead. Both must have found her lipstick. They look older, a little unfamiliar; even Ash has glitter on the back of a plump fist. They take him to the playhouse with an air of ceremony, exclaiming as they point to the windows, but he runs out and falls into the bark chips, crowing as he throws them about. The girls follow slowly, disheartened. Poppy frowns at her mother, her fault for letting Ash see the house earlier.