My mother had lived at Redmere for four years, but I still thought of it as Gabriel’s house when I saw it from the taxi.

It stood at the end of a long curve of gravel, pale brick and tall windows catching the late-June light. It was not a palace. It was simply much larger than any house needed to be, with a west wing no one used properly and a roofline that made the sky look tidier behind it. A child’s scooter had been left on its side beside the front steps. One of the stone urns held three tennis balls and no flowers.

That helped.

Elena came down before the taxi had stopped moving.

“You made it.”

“Eventually.”

She opened the boot herself and took one handle of my suitcase. The case moved six inches, caught on the lip of the pavement and nearly pulled her off balance.

Elena swore under her breath.

I laughed.

My mother looked over her shoulder. “It’s a heavy suitcase.”

“More than I needed, apparently.”

We tried again. The wheel lodged more firmly.

Clara appeared in the doorway, saw me and ran down the steps. She collided with my legs hard enough that I had to let go of the suitcase.

“Mara.”

“Hello to you too.”

She wrapped both arms around my waist and stayed there. Her hair smelled of shampoo and something sweet from lunch.

“Are you sleeping here tonight?”

“I was hoping to.”

“Good.”

She took my hand as if the matter had been settled.

A man came through the open door behind her.

Nico had been at the wedding, three Christmases and one lunch in London. I remembered Gabriel’s younger brother as someone who could cross a crowded room without ever appearing trapped in it. He had usually been speaking to two people at once.

In the doorway, without a party around him, he looked less familiar.

He was taller than Gabriel and darker in every feature. His mother was Portuguese, and the colouring had settled more decisively in him: deep brown hair with a slight wave, warm olive skin, dark eyes under heavy brows. At rest, his face had a clean, almost severe shape.

Then he looked at the suitcase.

“Should I intervene?”

“My mother started this,” I said.

“I was ambushed by a wheel,” Elena said.

Nico came down and took the case from her. He lifted it clear of the kerb before I had moved out of the way. The weight that had pulled both of us forward seemed to disappear in his hand.

“Mara.”

“Nico.”

He bent to kiss my cheek. It was the ordinary family greeting I had expected, except that I had remembered him at roughly Gabriel’s height. I had to tilt my face farther than expected. His jacket brushed my bare arm.

Then he straightened and picked up the smaller bag.

“I can carry that.”

“I know.”

He said it plainly and turned toward the house.

Clara kept hold of two of my fingers as we followed.

Inside, Redmere was cooler and less imposing. The hall had old stone underfoot, fresh flowers on the central table and a cardboard parcel split open beside the stairs. Somewhere deeper in the house, Gabriel was speaking on the phone. A radio played in the kitchen.

My mother had married into a life that seemed to produce both polished silver and abandoned boxes without finding either remarkable.

Gabriel came out of the study before we reached the stairs, phone still in his hand.

“I’ll call back,” he said, and ended the call.

He hugged me, then took the smaller bag from Nico.

“I meant to be outside.”

“Something in London collapsed.”

“Only a wall. The money is still there.”

His phone rang again. He silenced it.

Clara tugged my hand. “Come upstairs.”

“I need two minutes.”

Her grip tightened.

“Then you can show me your room.”

“Three.”

“Why three?”

She shrugged. “Three.”

“All right.”

The west bedroom was the one I had used since the wedding. It was comfortable, carefully prepared and still not quite mine. My mother had put fresh water by the bed and left an adapter on the desk. There were no new books selected to suggest a personality for me. I was grateful for that.

Nico brought in the suitcase. The doorway was wide, but the case made him turn sideways for a moment. His shoulder nearly filled the gap before he set it beside the wardrobe.

Northline did not take me on full-time until September. For the summer, Sofie had given me a short paid contract on a museum exhibition whose fabricator was based outside Winchester. It was enough work to justify my staying within driving distance and not enough to make Redmere feel temporary in any official way.

My phone vibrated. Sofie had sent a photograph of a mock-up in Copenhagen and one line beneath it:

THE SIGN IS BLOCKING THE FIRST CASE. PLEASE SAY I’M WRONG.

I enlarged the image.

Elena saw my face. “Urgent?”

“No. Just irritating.”

“I’ll leave you to be irritated.”

She said it lightly, but disappointment showed in the way she looked toward the corridor.

Clara climbed onto the window seat and waited, swinging one bare foot against the wood.

Nico remained by the door. His gaze moved from the phone to Clara and then back to me.

“I’m going down,” he told her. “You can stay.”

“I’m showing Mara my room.”

“In three minutes.”

She held up three fingers.

He looked at me once, then asked Elena whether Gabriel had signed the papers she had mentioned at lunch. My mother followed him out, answering before she realised she had been redirected.

I moved the sign in the mock-up and sent Sofie one sentence.

When I looked up, Clara was still waiting.

“Was that three minutes?” I asked.

“No.”

“How many?”

“A lot.”

I put down the phone.

At dinner, Gabriel asked whether the Copenhagen museum was the project about objects people carried when they moved between countries. He had remembered it from Christmas, though not its title. Elena wanted to know whether I had eaten on the train. Clara sat close enough that our elbows touched whenever she reached for water.

Nico arrived late in a fresh shirt and took the empty place opposite me. He apologised to no one in particular and began eating while Gabriel described an argument with a contractor.

He looked different without the jacket. Not dramatically. His sleeves ended at his wrists, and the shirt pulled across his shoulders when he reached for the water. I noticed because he moved the bottle toward Clara before filling his own glass.

Once, Gabriel forgot the name of a surveyor and Nico supplied it. A few minutes later, Elena asked whether Nico was staying at Redmere all week.

“Two nights.”

“You said that last week.”

“I was wrong last week.”

“Is there food in your flat?” Gabriel asked.

Nico considered. “There may be mustard.”

Clara looked up. “You can’t have mustard for dinner.”

“I’ve been warned.”

The conversation moved on.

It was the first thing I had learned about him that did not belong to Gabriel’s family or one of their projects: he had a flat somewhere, and apparently spent too little time in it to keep food there.

When Clara began to fall asleep over pudding, Elena carried her upstairs. Gabriel followed with the glasses.

For a few minutes, Nico and I were left at the table.

He nodded toward the ceiling. “Did she show you everything?”

“Her room, the broken music box and a stone she says came from France.”

“It came from the drive.”

“I suspected.”

He rested one forearm on the table. Without other people moving around him, he became still in a way I had not remembered. His attention no longer seemed divided between the room and whoever might need him next.

“You always leave quickly,” he said.

I looked at him. “Do I?”

“At Christmas. The anniversary lunch. Once before breakfast.”

“I had trains.”

“So I was told.”

There was no accusation in his voice, but he had noticed enough for the answer to feel inadequate.

“This time I’m staying,” I said.

“Yes.”

His eyes held mine for one second longer than the sentence required.

Then Gabriel called from upstairs.

Nico stood. The chair moved back against the floor, and the room seemed briefly smaller with him upright in it.

“Good night, Mara.”

“Good night.”

He left.

I sat for another minute before going upstairs.

* * *

The next morning, Redmere was quieter.

Gabriel had gone to London before breakfast. Elena was trying to get Clara into shoes while Clara sat on the floor and insisted she had already put them on once that week.

“You need them every day,” Elena said.

“That’s too many.”

My mother looked at me over Clara’s head. “Coffee is in the kitchen. I’ve hidden the good bread from Gabriel.”

Clara stood, hugged my knees without warning, then allowed herself to be taken to nursery.

The kitchen was large enough for a table that seated eight and small enough to feel used. A bowl of peaches had begun to soften by the window. My laptop and half a croissant occupied one end of the table.

I answered two messages, then closed the screen.

Nico came in speaking through one wireless earbud.

“No,” he said, opening a cupboard. “If he wants the survey by Monday, he can stop changing the brief on Friday.”

He listened, found a mug without looking and poured coffee.

“Then find someone who remembers where the original drawings are.”

He ended the call and removed the earbud.

I began gathering my things.

“You don’t have to move,” he said.

“I was finished.”

He glanced at the closed laptop, then at me. “That was efficient.”

“It was two emails.”

He sat across from me. For nearly a minute, neither of us spoke.

In daylight, the fact that I had noticed his shirt at dinner seemed slightly absurd. He drank coffee and read an email like any other man who had arrived in a kitchen too early.

Elena returned near lunch carrying a nursery painting that had already transferred blue paint to her sleeve. She set it on the counter and asked whether I had slept well.

“Fine.”

“And the room?”

“Also fine.”

“You can move the desk if the light is wrong.”

“The light is fine.”

“There are shelves in storage if you need more.”

“I don’t.”

My answer came sharper than I intended.

Elena reached for the kettle. “All right.”

Nico looked up from his phone but said nothing.

My mother turned too quickly. “Mara doesn’t want shelves.”

“No one was arguing about shelves,” I said.