Sometimes I’d go into the ballet class and watch, sitting on a chair to the side. Helena was eight, then.

Other times, during her lesson, I’d drive to my paint shop, the art shop. I’d spend an hour browsing the paints and canvases, the tubes and bottles and brushes, the rows and rows on the wooden shelves. Eric, who managed the shop, was a young man, he knew me well. I had been going there for years, and he’d been there since he finished art college. He was building his own portfolio, hoping for gallery representation one day. They were visits of love for me, to that shop. Sometimes I’d try new oils, a new brand, but not often. I was so particular. I was so bound by habit, and Eric often laughed with me about that. No one is as particular as you, he’d say. Why don’t you try a new pigment, a new brush? No, no, I cannot do that, I’d say. It was true, it really was true.

And then I’d pick Helena up again, her flushed face, her hair falling in strands from its ponytail. She was a serious child, she didn’t laugh much, perhaps she resembled me, I think that might be true.

Stephen was eleven. He loved to swim, there were those afternoons in the pool, hours and hours: he splashing, jumping, then lying down alongside in the sun, then jumping or diving in again. He’d swim lengths as he got older, like his father. His father who’d been a champion swimmer, in his day.

And then in the evenings, close to seven but still light, Howard came home. How long it took me to get used to the failing light here, when the late afternoon comes! You who’ve always lived here might not feel the difference, but I — I feel it, every time.

Howard still had so much energy when he came home. There’d be tumult when he arrived, Josias first opening the garage door for his car, I could hear the door grind open, or perhaps I just imagine I could hear it, from my bedroom where I’d be. The dogs, then, barking. Laughter from the kitchen and the maids, how Howard made them laugh! The children: Dad, Dad, you know what happened today? Dad! Dad! And then Howard would get to our room, hello, hello. He’d look at me searchingly, hi sweetheart. Perhaps I was beautiful, then.

Howard would change out of his suit — hardly rumpled — his briefcase already abandoned in his study across the hall. We’d head to the dining room for dinner.

Emily served dinner. Josias helped in the kitchen, scurrying in or out with a pot, a heavier one, or fetching a serving spoon, something forgotten by Emily, or washing the pots, after. Emily was a good cook, better than me. Perhaps her previous employer had taught her, I think that might be true. The children were raucous, talkative, at dinner, Helena quieter, but also competing in her voice with her day’s stories. I think I was quiet, I probably ate quietly, I feel that is true. Perhaps I was firm with the children, reprimanding them about their table manners: take your elbows off the table, off! Don’t talk while you’re chewing, don’t do that!