“What happened to your hand?” he asked.

“Munitions. I did fuses for a while. Your mother didn’t like it at all.”

“I can imagine. It must have made her hate the war to see your hands like that. It makes me hate it.”

“But I can work a lathe. And I can ride Frannie’s bicycle. I rather enjoyed all the greasy camaraderie and I liked feeling independent. We used to sing sometimes. Though, when I think what we were making, I’m not certain that singing wasn’t awful.”

“Depends on how despicable your songs were.”

“Dreadfully so. And we swore like soldiers. We were gleefully vulgar and we laughed at it. But you’re not here to hear my new swear words, are you? And what about your hand?”

“Munitions.” She saw him smile as his words echoed hers. “Shrapnel. It ended it for me. I was in hospital in London for two months.”

“I didn’t know that. You should have told me that. You should have written to me. I would have come and seen you.”

“Would you?”

“You know I would.”

“Perhaps that’s why I didn’t write.”

He leaned back on a chair, kicked off his boots, and lit a cigarette. She watched his fingertips moving over the surface of the kitchen table, refinding familiar textures, knowing that he was remembering his mother placing down saucepans here, the flash of her working knife, his mother’s hands scrubbing soap into circles of bubbles on this tabletop. He had moved all around this room touching things, and Edie knew that in doing so he was reconnecting, pulling the detail back into focus, putting the memories all back into place.

“I don’t remember these teacups. I don’t remember the bluebells.”

“They were my mother’s,” she said. “It’s all jumbled up now. When I moved back in I brought everything from next door with me and the two houses got all muddled up together. This house used to be so full of voices, but now it’s just me and all these cupboards full of other people’s china patterns.”

“I have never known this house so quiet.”

“Isn’t it? You’re all still here with me, though. I hear your voices every day when I enter rooms, and then I have to check myself. I sound quite mad, don’t I? But I still open doors and fully expect you all to be there. It’s oddly comforting to have all your possessions around me. All your things are still in your bedroom, by the way, all your paints and pencils.”