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Sunday. Vivian's house, six in the evening.
Three at the table, the silver at treaty strength.
Vivian carved. She talked about the roof, the hornbeams, the autumn, which had come early, which she had decided to approve of. She set a plate in front of Maya with the precision that made a plate look like a decision.
"I packed that girl's bag myself on Friday," she said. "Scrubs. A nightdress. A jar. A book for the road. I carried it down my own hall."
Daniel's attention came up from his plate, mild.
"On Saturday it weighed more."
"Mother."
"I'm only saying, darling. Nurses collect things. They can't help it; it's the pockets." Vivian lifted her glass an inch without drinking. "I hope whatever she collected is a comfort to her."
"She collected two ribs," Daniel said. "On our stairs."
"On the annex stairs, darling. Let us be exact about whose." The pearls got one touch, two. "You drove her home yourself. That was well done. People notice who drives."
"I left the car in her street."
"Good. A car that comes home by itself twice begins to look like a habit."
Maya's fork kept its schedule. Her hands had gone cold to the wrist.
Across the candles her husband ate, unhurried. His mother had just told the table what a bag weighed. He had asked nothing.
At half past seven he took his glass to the terrace, because that was how Sunday went. Vivian took her secateurs off the sideboard.
"Walk me to the hornbeams, dear. It's the hour I walk."
The lawn was going from gold to silver. Vivian read the hedge for insubordination, one gloved hand on the blades.
"There is a photograph in that bag of my son asleep," she said.
Maya said nothing. It was the only line she had.
"Don't trouble to look surprised. I knew what was kept over that garage before you could spell our name." Snip. A spent head dropped. "Do you know what a stranger sees in a picture of a man asleep beside his wife?"
The rest is behind this line.
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