Sylvia wonders how some of these animals manage the cold. the elephants swaying protectively in their sandy lot, screening their narrow-hipped baby. The hippos, the motionless crocodiles. They’re as foreign as possible here, with no natural defense against the bone-chill of an English winter. Today, it’s very cold, but cloudless, and glassy bright: even in his sleep Nicholas is squinting against the sun, his little twisting face framed by a jumble of extra woolens at the back of the pram. Sylvia reaches in, tucks the blankets more tightly around him, and adjusts the pram’s hood. She’s got a scarf pulled over her head and tied at her chin, hair brushed now but loose to her waist, a pair of worsted pants and a sweater and coat tossed on at the last minute. Ahead of her on the narrow macadam path, Frieda is pointing and tugging Ted’s hand, eager as a puppy. They’re passing the giraffes’ canal-side acre, pulled by force of nearly forgotten habit toward the lion house and the morning feeding of the big cats.

Leaned over the flat’s banister in her nightgown, hair catching in her mouth, kisses blown to children whose faces and hands were newly wiped, nappies changed once more and potty tendered, their boots and mitts applied, jackets zipped. Ted asked her once again to be sure—she refused—before leading the children down the staircase, Nicholas at his hip, Frieda gripped by the wrist. She watched him wrestle the pram out of its cove under the stairs. He’d just told the children to sit on the hallway floor while he carried the pram out and down the steps—she could see him on the landing, the black wrought-iron railing catching on his coat pocket as he maneuvered clumsily, craning his neck to be sure the children were still sitting, safe—when she realized she couldn’t bear to watch them go without her. She couldn’t stand to be left behind, alone in the empty flat. Her children, sitting on the doorstep, gazed curiously at their father struggling with the pram beyond the doorsill, waiting to see what he would do. Obediently still and jaunty-hatted, like an audience of colorful, patient elves.

“Frieda, my helper girl, hold Baby Nick’s hand—” Ted’s hand out, huge and flat and beckoning, his long legs straddling the steps, protecting his family from any chance of a fall.

“Wait. Wait! I’m coming too—”

Their faces, all three, turned toward the stairs.