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The child slept in a pram behind the house.

The pram was from Brio, and the child was an eight-month-old girl. She lay under a crocheted blanket, wearing a matching bonnet with a string fastened under her chin. The pram sat under the shade of a maple tree; behind the tree the forest stood like a black wall. The mother was in the kitchen. She couldn’t see the pram through the window, but she wasn’t concerned about her sleeping baby, not for an instant.

Pottering about thoroughly content, she was light as a ballerina on her feet, not a single worry in her heart. She had everything a woman could dream of: beauty, health and love. A husband, a child, and a home and garden with rhododendrons and lush flowers. She held life in the palm of her hand.

She looked at the three photographs hanging on the kitchen wall. In one photograph, taken under the maple, she wore a flowery dress. In another her husband, Karsten, was on the front porch. The last was a photograph of her and Karsten together on the sofa, the child between them. The girl’s name was Margrete. The arrangement of the three photos made her smile. One plus one is surely three, she thought — it is truly a miracle. Now she saw that miracle everywhere. In the sunlight cascading through the windows, in the thin white curtains fluttering in the breeze.

At the worktop she energetically kneaded a smooth, lukewarm dough between her fingers. She was making a chicken and chanterelle quiche, while Margrete slept beneath the maple in her little bonnet, she, too, smooth and warm under the blanket. Her little heart pumped a modest amount of blood, and it coloured her cheeks pink.

She slept heavily, and with open hands, as only a baby can.

Lily rolled the dough on a marble slate. As she swung the rolling pin, her body swayed and her skirt billowed around her legs — like a dance by the worktop.

It was summer and warm, and she was bare-legged. She set the pastry in a pie dish, poked it with a fork and trimmed the edges. Then she put a roast chicken on the chopping board. Poor little thing, she thought, and tore its thighs off. She liked the cracking sound the cartilage made when tearing from the bone. Light and tender, the meat let go easily, and she succumbed to the temptation to stick a piece in her mouth. It’s good, she thought, it has just enough seasoning, and it’s lean too. She filled the pie dish and sprinkled on Cheddar cheese. Then she checked the time. She didn’t worry about Margrete. If the child sneezed she would know it immediately. If she coughed or hiccuped, or began to cry, she would know. Because there was a bond between them, a bond as thick as a mooring line. Even the slightest tug would reach her like a vibration.