I poured the coffee into two cups. However careful I was, I always spilled a little from the pan. If only I’d brought just one cannikin with me from Alexandria, one little metal jug with a lip and a long handle, designed for sitting on the heat and making and pouring coffee. Sacrilege to fill it with this syrupy comforting pap, but still.

“You never say one word about Catherine. About the time we had with her, when I was expecting. Or about when she died. Or afterward.” I wiped up the sticky slop on the stovetop. “Not one word.”

“Because it makes you sad, Yvette.” He spoke patiently, as if we’d had this exchange a thousand times. But I’d never said this to him before.

“It doesn’t make me sad. I’m sad already. And I want to remember her, especially the time when she was alive.” My tears were falling freely, consoling and lukewarm; a low salt content, I judged. “With every day that passes, I’m further away from her.”

“Yvette, sweetheart.” James’s gaze was full of the most sincerely conveyed concern. “I’m sure we can find somebody for you to talk to. Mrs. Goodwin, for example. She’s an awfully good listener.”

I remember his face now. His brows dark above his eyes. His hair longer than it had been in the war. A student prince. (Chillingly, new James was slightly more handsome than the real one.)

“Like a pile of ironing,” I said.

He moved his head a fraction sideways, to show incomprehension.

“I could take the matter of our baby, our lost baby, to this woman, the same way I could take your surplices and stoles to the laundry to be starched and pressed—”

“Darling, do you want to use the laundry? I’m sure we could afford it somehow—”

“I’m not talking about the blessed laundry. I’m talking about Catherine. I’m saying that such a woman would be a great convenience for you. You wouldn’t have to keep trying to avoid the subject of our daughter, because I’d have no call to mention her name in this house. There would be a person I could go to, for that sort of thing.”

He stood up and opened his arms. I never failed to melt when he did this, as if by touching him I could persuade myself that he hadn’t changed. Leaning against his chest I felt and heard his words. “Yvette, I apologize. You’ve found me wanting, and I’m sorry for that. I will do better, I promise. Now let’s drink up this lovely coffee while it’s still hot.”

I put my hand on his chest. He stepped back in surprise.