"Hello, love," Erik said. His voice was thick. His arms were tight around her. He looked at Steph over Tima's head and she saw the thing she always saw in that look — the gratitude that was bigger than the word, the knowledge that what she'd done over the weekend was not babysitting, was not a favour, was something that didn't have a word but that they both understood.

"She's been wonderful," Steph said.

"Was she —"

"She was perfect. She was completely Tima."

Peter appeared in the doorway. "Tea?" he said, hopeful.

"We should crack on," Erik said.

"One cup," Peter said. "The road's not going anywhere."

"One cup," Steph agreed, because she could see that Peter wanted one minute of warmth and a kitchen and the small grace of being somewhere that wasn't under a boiler, and she understood that need because she felt it every day.

But Erik shook his head gently. "We should get back. She'll want her own bed tonight."

Tima had lifted her face from Erik's neck. She was looking at Steph now, from the safety of her father's arms, and her expression was the one Steph knew best — the watching one. The one that took things in and held them and didn't let them go.

Peter shrugged. "Right then. Another time."

Eira arrived at the door with the solemnity of a diplomat.

"Tima," she said. "I have to say goodbye now."

Tima looked at her from Erik's hip.

"I put a drawing in your bag. And a pine cone. Don't eat the pine cone."

Tima pointed at Eira. "Eira," she said. Clear. Both syllables.

"Yes. I'm Eira. We established this."

"Eira," Tima said again, and reached out one hand — the gesture of someone who wants to touch something before it goes, who understands that going is what things do and touching is what you do before.

Eira took her hand. She held it for a moment. Then she leaned in and kissed Tima's fingers — a gesture so adult, so precise, so unlike anything a four-year-old should know how to do that Steph felt the air leave her lungs.

"Bye, Tima."

"Bye Eira."

"Bye Hoppy."

Tima held up Hoppy. Eira kissed his nose.

"Right," Peter said from the wall. "That's enough, or I'm going to need the cup of tea after all and none of us want that."

Erik smiled. He shifted Tima on his hip. Steph handed him the bag — the bag with the inhaler and the milk cup and the yellow top and the drawing and the pine cone and the biscuit for the journey.

"Thank you," Erik said.

"Stop thanking me."

He nodded. He turned toward the car. Tima was on his hip, facing backward — facing Steph — and as they walked down the path she kept her gaze on the door. On Steph. That steady, even gaze.

"Hiya," she said.