A heavy footstep sounds on the stone veranda outside the kitchen.

“Talk of the devil.” Eric vanishes to confer with Igor. Eve hands a croissant and a mug of coffee through the window; Igor nods as he takes them, his face half hidden behind a large beard, cap pulled low. He seldom speaks to her; whether he’s shy or sullen she can’t quite decide.

“Who’s a princess?” Poppy appears, dressed for the day in a red sequined jacket unearthed from the dress-up box. She’d been listening outside the door. Her beloved eldest with thick auburn braids, a splash of freckles over her nose, and toenails painted blue; eleven going on sixteen.

“You are of course, my precious one.” Eve swoops for a hug, but Poppy grabs a croissant and makes for the door. Eve watches her go, registering a small tug of sadness; she used to be allowed to hold her eldest daughter. She’d hold all three children so close it was hard to tell in the tangle of limbs where her body ended and theirs began. Poppy disappears as Sorrel tumbles over her sister’s feet and into the room. She scrambles up, used to this. Six years old, a smaller edition of her sister but rounder, more disheveled, sunnier in nature.

“May I have one, and one for Ash?” She lisps, her tongue catching the wide gaps between her teeth.

“Of course you may, my little darling.” Eric has returned for his boots. He lifts her to the table and she frowns, breathing deeply as she chooses two croissants, one for each hand; put down on the floor she tiptoes out, silent as Noah, Sorrel’s little Labrador puppy asleep in front of the stove.

Eric shakes his head. “We should have breakfast round the table, Eve.”

Eve holds on to an image of her daughters upstairs, whispering under the tented sheets, littering fragments of pastry, the filtered sun rosy on their skin. They will have brought Ash into bed with them.

“We should just let them be,” she replies.

“Kids need a structured life.” He laces his boots; this is an old argument, one they’ve tossed back and forth for years.

“They need freedom,” she calls out as he shuts the door. She hears him clomp down the path in his boots. It doesn’t matter; she lets them stay outside for hours when he’s away, playing until dark or the cold brings them in. She gives them the run of the garden as a secret gift, the childhood she wishes she’d had.

A croissant falls from the rack into a shaft of dusty sun. Eve checks the fridge: carrot sticks, small sandwiches, homemade pizzas. She pulls butter from the middle shelf, strawberry jam from inside the door, and lathers both on a warm croissant with a knife, nicking her finger. She leans her elbows on the windowsill, sucking the blood off her skin, eyes half closed like a cat in the sunshine. The garden spreads out in front of her, the blue hydrangeas nodding their great heads near the house, roses and lavender against the side wall by the drive. The donkeys in the field, and beyond them the grass in the meadow and then the trees, which are larger than they were when she was a child, much taller. They cast shadows that are darker and stretch farther than they did back then. As she watches, the little wood seems to shiver in the breeze, as if readying itself for the children.