“Well, it will be so soothing to get back to Court Green after the morning bustle of Exeter,” Aurelia blathers, bridging the stiff little gap in the conversation. “Though I’m sure you really don’t have to worry about Ted or the children,” she offers reassuringly. “I’m sure they’re just fine without you.”

“What do you mean?” Sylvia asks, braking at the next stoplight. “I never leave them. I never leave Nick.” Her voice goes suddenly tremulous; she flashes a tiny fearful look at her mother.

“Sylvia, I didn’t mean anything,” her mother replies blandly. “I just meant that Ted has been gone so much this week—”

“What do you mean by that?” Sylvia asks, defensive, gathering herself up on the seat. “Don’t criticize Ted. He’s got to go to the dentist for his teeth. He has things he must do whether you’re here or not. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sylvia, of course I’m not criticizing Ted,” Aurelia answers, puzzled, quick to explain herself. “I only meant that I’m sure he doesn’t mind keeping the children alone for a day. I just meant that I don’t think you need to worry about them.”

“I worry about them all the time, Mother,” Sylvia says, her voice welling despite herself. “All I do is worry about them.” She is gripping the steering wheel, staring ahead now at the lozenge of Exeter trapped in the windshield, one foot on the brake, the other poised over the gas.

“Darling, of course you do, I’m sorry,” Aurelia says, scrabbling for balance. “I don’t mean you don’t worry about them at all. I just meant that you could take a day for yourself, and they would be fine. Ted said it would be fine.” Uneasy, she watches the side of Sylvia’s face, which has receded into impenetrable shadow. Sylvia stares at the traffic signal, which urges her mindlessly to caution.

They’d been gone all morning. She maneuvered her mother first through the shops along the flower-potted sidewalks of the Princesshay markets, then to an early cream tea on the quay. Aurelia, who had been appalled when she and Ted quit their teaching jobs to move back to England and live, they hoped, solely by their writing, insisted on picking up the check, blinking with anxiety, her thin bony fingers feeling around the inside of her little coin purse. St. Peter’s Cathedral, thank god, was free. It reposed dramatically in fawn-colored stone beyond its copse of protective trees, humbler buildings crowding in on all sides of the grounds. They crossed the sun-beaten green to the Gothic western entrance, as tall as Court Green’s trio of elms. The carved saints were stacked up to the windows, standing on each other’s shoulders with their faces ground away by the centuries, shimmering grittily in the heat.