“I’ve got twelve months of bank receipts sitting on the desk inside,” I said.

“They aren’t looking at receipts, Clara,” Evan said.

“They’re looking at their phones.”

He lifted the wrapped gift boxes out of the trunk, climbed the porch steps, and set them inside the front hall.

At nine o’clock, I was standing at the kitchen stove stirring a little pot of warm porridge for Lucy.

Lucy sat at the laminate kitchen table in her yellow pajamas, twisting a loose blue thread on the cuff of her left sleeve.

Her red plush rabbit sat on the placemat next to her spoon, its squashed left ear leaning flat against the painted wood.