The ruin of winter. Sylvia feels the scrape of those words inside her, efficient and deadly. It’s not the abundance in her life that makes her uneasy; it’s the idea of loss that exists alongside, like some terrible hibernating animal nested within her walls.

“What did you think of Burma, then?” Ted asks Assia, placing the cake inside the warming oven.

“That’s different,” Assia answers, swiveling in her chair to face Ted at the stove. “In that part of the world, all of nature feels like exotica, even in its purity. People don’t seem to belong in that context. But here,” she says, addressing the view from the bay window, the oak- and laurel-covered hills undulating away into the early haze, the heather dotted with sheep and stone, “I get a sense of the old England. Surely the gardens are cultivated. Someone planted your apple orchard a hundred years ago. But there’s a dark wildness here also. Something uncontrollable, but with a human history as well. There’s an archetypal current to the place.”

“That’s it,” Ted nods, “that’s just what attracted me.”

Sylvia listens, expressionless, and doesn’t sit, rocking side to side on her hips, burping Nicholas. She watches Assia, who is curled now, catlike, over the spindle-backed chair, her bare arms twined across the chair back, another cashmere cardigan draped across her shoulders like a limp, expensive trophy. It dawns on Sylvia that Assia is wearing the same outfit Sylvia wore yesterday, though Assia reeks of Chanel, not dirt or urine-soaked nappies. Even her hair today is gathered into a loose braid, which flicks and glints over her shoulder as she preens. Sylvia steps farther into her kitchen and jerks out a drawer, collecting silverware and folded linen napkins, then reaches up for a pitcher from the cupboard. A swag of bay leaves hangs from the lintel; Sylvia picks one and hands it to Ted. He nods, preoccupied, listening to Assia, then looks down at the leaf, uncomprehending.

“For the potatoes. For flavor,” Sylvia says. “I know what you mean about the sun coming through the elm,” she adds, addressing Assia crisply at the table. Assia has gone through Sylvia’s books and magazines; now she’s exploring the children. She’s affected yet another provocative pose, assisting Frieda with her precarious towers of toy teacups and saucers, aping a maternal interest. “We watched the sunrise from the guest room on the morning Nicholas arrived, and before that the full moon. He was born in the very bed where you slept, Assia.” Sylvia pauses for dramatic effect, patting the baby’s back. “It’s warmer there than in our bedroom, and because of Frieda’s birth at home we prepared ourselves for the rather messy procedure.”

“Indeed, he arrived in a torrent of his own making,” adds Ted, turning potatoes at the stove.

There is a low, rumbling eruption from Nicholas. Everyone turns in surprise. Frieda laughs with gleeful relish.