were the children I was with right then—well, not right then, but at that moment in my life. I saw a toy shop. They had sketchpads and an art set, and an orange octopus—not a real one, a soft toy—with a smiley face and surprisingly realistic tentacles. I bought them both and had them gift-wrapped for the girls.
On Christmas Day, Coco took her first steps. “Ma-ma Ya-ya!” she shouted—she had started to alternate between “Ma-ma” and “Ya-ya” despite my constant correction (“It’s Soh . . . fee!”)—holding her arms out to me and planting one little leg after the other. I held out my arms to her and she took six wobbly steps. I clapped my hands and turned to see Tom holding his head in his hands on the sofa. He was weeping at the sight of Coco walking, his shoulders legit going up and down. When she did it again he recovered his composure and got down on all fours, padding after her around the room until she collapsed into fits of giggles. After a few moments she squirmed out of his arms to practice walking some more, and he turned to me with a beaming smile. “Thank you,” he said, as if I’d engineered the timing of her first steps just for him.
Later, when the girls had gone to bed, I noticed Tom was drunk. He staggered up to me, wineglass in hand, and said, “You’re a great nanny, Sophie,” with more warmth in his voice than I could remember encountering the whole time I’d worked for him. Also his words were very slurred, so all the warmth was just the wine. Still, he said: “Perhaps when we get back to London you can continue nannying for us. I mean, of course you might already have something lined up . . .”
“No, no!” I said hastily. “I would love that.”
Another radiant, completely trashed smile. “I’ll drink to that.”
He tried to pour me a glass of wine and I hesitated—alcohol has always affected me more than the next person, and I’d seen it transform relatively sensible adults into fist-throwing Neanderthals more times than I cared to remember.
“I’ll stick to water,” I told him.
He shrugged. “’K.”
I filled a glass, and we toasted.
“To . . . surviving,” he said.
“To thriving,” I said.
26
i saw her swimming
NOW
Gaia is dreaming about the last time she saw her mumma. It’s a memory-fantasy mash-up, because there are characters from her favorite Netflix shows, and Coco is there, too, shouting “Ya-ya,” and Maren keeps bursting out of a cupboard shouting Norwegian verbs that she has to repeat. Kjenner! Leser! Løper!
In the dream Gaia sees Mumma sitting on the edge of her bed, nodding off after reading a story. Poor Mumma, Gaia thinks. She’s always so tired these days, and Gaia is tired, too, but she’s glad she has company, as she hates this house. It has a bad feeling inside it, and although she’s tried to tell Mumma this she suspects Mumma already knows. Maybe they’ll go home soon. Daddy’s new house got destroyed so that means they’ll be going home soon.
And in the memory, she feels Mumma move off the bed. She opens her eyes just a little and sees Mumma stand up and look out of the window. It’s must be morning, because Mumma’s face is lit up and she looks worried. Gaia is still so sleepy. She mumbles something to Mumma, but she doesn’t respond.
Next thing Gaia knows is her mumma is gone, and she knows from the look on her face and from the language without words that exists between them that her mumma has seen something outside, something very strange and concerning. Her mumma has gone out to check. Gaia’s still floating in that warm dreamspace of sleepiness and it’s much too early to get up because her clock hasn’t even made the buzz noise that Mumma told her it has to make before she’s allowed to come into her room. This is Mumma’s effort to make Gaia sleep in her own bed, even though Gaia much prefers Mumma’s bed, which feels as though it’s made of swan’s feathers and summer clouds. She hears footsteps on the landing and smiles—Mumma’s coming back. But the footsteps don’t sound like Mumma’s, and she raises her head just enough to see someone else go past the bedroom door. It’s Derry. Gaia hears the sound of the kitchen door swing shut, then the sound of Derry’s feet jogging through the garden.
When Gaia wakes again, it’s