“Gross,” Izzy says.

Sorrel takes her feet off again. “Ash was all right when he went to bed,” she whispers.

“Shut up because he’s not all right now, is he? He’s dead.” Poppy has started crying and that makes Sorrel feel worse. Izzy walks around the room looking at things like the china donkey and the spoon with Mummy’s name on it and the little candles in candlesticks. She picks them up and stares at them, then she puts them back, like she is in a shop and she’s thinking about buying them but deciding they aren’t worth the money. She picks up Ash’s red tractor and looks at it for a while, which makes Sorrel want to snatch it away, except she daren’t. Noah licks Sorrel’s hand.

“It’s not because he likes you, it’s for the salt and that’s also pretty gross.” Izzy makes a being-sick face.

Charley would hold Sorrel’s hand if she were here and she would probably say something to Izzy about it not being gross if dogs lick your hand.

“I’ve got a good idea,” Izzy says. It sounds like she’s thought of something really nice. “We can play our special game. That’ll take our minds off what’s happened. I’ve got the dice.”

“We can’t,” Poppy says quickly. “There’s not enough of us. Blake and Charley aren’t here.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Izzy says. “We don’t need them for this one.”

Sorrel’s tummy hurts, she wants Charley to be here. Charley doesn’t do whatever Izzy says and she makes her feel safe. Izzy gets up and takes the lighter thing from her pocket and lights one of the candles, it looks pretty, but Sorrel throws the wrong dice so she loses the game.

“She’s too little,” Poppy says.

“We can’t change the rules,” Izzy says; she holds Sorrel’s hand gently at first but then really tightly because at the last minute Sorrel tries to pull away.

That night Poppy lets her sleep in her bed. She doesn’t seem to mind that she’s still crying; she can’t help it because her hand hurts and she wants her mother so much her tummy hurts again—but her mother as she usually is, laughing and cooking and stroking her cheek, not silent and staring, like some sort of monster.

8. November

Three Weeks After Ash’s Death

Eve

The little seat, the stroller, and the carriage have disappeared; corners that were stuffed with toys are now sharp-angled with light. The teddy with the shiny waistcoat and the red tractor have gone to the loft. The children appear and disappear on the edge of Eve’s vision, light-bodied and silent as ghosts. Eve walks slowly through the upstairs corridors from room to room, as if deep underwater. It’s hard to make her limbs work, hard to breathe. She stands by the bags of clothes in Ash’s room, puts in the green onesie, takes it out again, holds it to her heart. Eric wants to burn everything as if he could destroy grief that way. Ash was burned after the autopsy. Ashes to ashes. She had hoped no one would say it, but someone did, a woman she didn’t know, clutching a prayer book and watching her face.