“Did it make you homesick?” Philip asked. He had his arms folded on the table, he was leaning forward.

“What?”

“The oil.”

I smiled. “My home is Alver Shore.”

“Ah yes, the dreaded Alver Shore.”

“Don’t call it dreaded. Parts of it are very nice.” I peered over at his notebook. “Can I see what you were drawing? Or is it private?”

He showed me the pages. Hands cupping cups, clasping cup handles. Bridie’s fingers curled at rest, her knuckles lovingly wrinkled. My fingers dashed off in quick thin lines, splayed out on the edge of the tabletop, all the detail concentrated on my rings, which he had enlarged into a bloated diamond that sat glittering next to a fat shiny nugget of a wedding ring.

“The Wife,” I exclaimed.

That made him laugh. “I promise that your rings will be normal size in the painting.”

“You’re an artist, you have complete license.”

“Come, to work.” He got up and went to the low window that faced the garden. “The light’s best here. Try this easy chair.”

I sat down. In front of me and slightly to one side was a low easel with a backless wooden seat attached to it. “This is my donkey,” Philip said, bestriding the seat. “I hardly dare name it after your mischievous teasing. The art school donkeys were all designed for normal mortals, they gave me cramp in the knees, so I constructed this one myself. Make yourself comfortable, Yvette. Move when you need to. I’ll make lots of drawings. If you want to stop, tell me.”

He sounded calm, and older. Working at his profession.

This was the same chair I’d sat in on my first visit. When I arrived out of the blue, or almost, and unloaded a shocking cataract of tears all over a kind woman who’d answered the door to a stranger in the middle of her morning chores. I’d watched the birds hop and cheep and peck. The chair was just as enclosing and comforting as before. I thought of Bridie, how she had turned my unfeeling mockery of Maman into a joke against herself. She had no quarrel with the world. And neither did Philip. How contentedly she gazed at him, her oldest, second child, the joy of her life. She loved all her children but Philip was special, the first after Gerard.

Would I ever come to gaze at my second child? Waiting for this baby was like looking into the sea mist off Alver Shore, straining your eyes for the light of an approaching boat. You could lose your wits staring into the fog. Supposing there wasn’t any boat? I simply had to hope. Hope for that which is seen is not hope.