“Fuck off crying,” Poppy said. Sorrel had never actually heard Poppy say “fuck off” so loudly before. “Fuck off crying.” Poppy began to shout it out loudly like a kind of chant.

Blake had laughed about the skirt being thrown on the fire, which made her feel worse. He took off his shirt but he tied it around his waist; perhaps he didn’t have many shirts and was scared Izzy would throw it into the fire as well. “This is the best party I’ve ever been to,” he had shouted. “Fuck off crying.”

Charley held Sorrel’s hand and ran with her. They were so far away from the adults, no one could hear them screaming “fuck off” at the top of their voices. It began to have nothing to do with her anymore so Charley had joined in and then she did too. It had been sort of exciting and sort of scary.

5. August

Eve

Eve’s knife slices through the okra stems with a crunch. Splashing noises from the pool merge with the bells from the church and the bees in the sage; holiday sounds, synonymous with happiness. Everyone has a place they love more than anywhere else and for Eve it is here: this little Greek village, this house, this very stone step outside the kitchen bathed in warm sunshine. The views soothe her mind, the wide sky behind the mountains and those fields of gleaming olive trees beyond the garden that slope toward the sea. She’s promised they’d go to the beach tomorrow. Martin is writing in the shade of the trees to her left, his red shirt like a flag that draws her gaze despite herself. Papers are spread over the dry ground around his table. He says it’s going well, that this is the most perfect place to write, that he can see his way into the story now. He’s grateful. She puts the knife down. She can step back. It’s not too late, they’ve hardly touched.

He arrived yesterday at noon with Charley, Blake, Melissa, and Izzy. It had taken them a couple of hours in the hired car from Kalamata Airport, and they were all sweating when they arrived. The children had raced with Poppy and Sorrel toward the swimming pool through the trees, shrieking like little animals. Melissa hurried after them, Eric following more slowly with Ash. Eve brought Martin into the kitchen for a drink. It was as dark and cool as a cave, the air scented by a bunch of wild thyme in a jug. She put ice in his glass and watched him drink, head tipped back, throat working. A drop had bulged, trembling at the lip of the tap by the sink. He put his glass down and looked at her. The only sound had been the wasps around a pot of honey on the table. She led him up the twisting wooden steps for the view, up to the bedroom at the top of the house, hers and Eric’s. He’d glanced at the bed draped with mosquito nets. She pushed open the wooden shutters and hot light had streamed in, blindingly bright. The wide landscape stretched in front of them, baking in the sun, with the yellow-brown Taygetus mountains on the left and a glittering line of sea in the distance.