This guy was sitting alone, entirely unembarrassed by his solitude, wearing a t-shirt and jeans instead of a linen shirt and chinos, drinking a coke instead of something alcoholic, and wearing a kind of ring that Sarah recognised. Her own parents being a mixture of non-believing Jewish (her mother), and culture-clinging half-Jew (her father), Sarah herself had never had her own day of reckoning in synagogue; but she had tried getting drunk via invitation to a drinking society, and couldn’t, she had tried fitting in with her jolly hockey-sticks sports teams, and didn’t, she had tried joining the naked run around the quad, and returned fully dressed to her bedroom. Here at last was a frame of reference that she recognised, poised upon the hand of the most arresting ‘guy’ she had ever encountered, his strength immediately startling in its softness. Brown eyes crept out from beneath an unkempt head of floppy locks, earnest words followed; and she was his. Two true-blooded Jews finding each other long before either could collect the usual university dalliances, and in their union pleasing hordes of dead great-grandparents, despite the best efforts of rebellious intervening generations.

Found, with David, perimeters erected themselves around her again. It had only been a brief interlude of aimlessness, a matter of weeks really, and now Sarah began again to soar. That was the thing about David: he was so substantial, so constant, so unwavering in his faith in her and in himself, that it was impossible not to feel secure in his arms. He made her laugh, and he laughed with her, getting her jokes, noticing the small witticisms she’d thought were only funny within the confines of her family who had created them, making her feel entertaining and shiny and seen. Validated, she was able to take this shininess and radiate it outward. And his roots were so deeply dug, so firmly fixed, so akin to her own, that protected by the borders of their relationship, no matter the condescension she encountered elsewhere – what does your father do, where do you summer – Sarah felt safe, free.

“Are you okay?” David asked again. “Is it Veronica?”

That was the other thing about David, he had a knack for seeing through to a person’s soul. Many times now since Veronica’s visit to the museum, he had urged Sarah to breathe, to not worry, to realise it was all just a petty attempt to annoy.

But David didn’t know Veronica, not properly. He didn’t know what she had done that summer, or the lasting impact it had had. He didn’t know what she was capable of. He didn’t know how Veronica had hurt Eliza. And the thing about David’s perimeters, was that though strong, they were never enforced by him, never imposed, not a court-ordered requirement, only there, without pressure, without threat, to shield those that chose to reside within them. Amelia. Harry. Her. A force-field of principles, just like the ones Sarah’s family had wrapped her in so tightly and which she hugged against her chin.