Papa looked at Tima in the sandbox. Tima was building something — what, he couldn't tell, the architecture of a two-and-a-half-year-old being subject to its own internal logic — but she was building it with the concentration of a woman laying bricks.

"Tima," he called. "Eira wants to come. Peter too. They want to walk up the forest. Shall we?"

Tima's head came up. The name Eira had the same effect it always had — the widening of the eyes, the smile, the full-body alert of a child who has heard the name of the person she considers to be the most important person in the world after Papa and Hoppy.

"Eira's coming?"

"If you want."

"YES."

Papa put the phone back to his ear. "She says yes."

"I heard. I think they heard in Newport."

"Bring the blanket. The tartan one."

"Obviously. I'm not a savage. Give us an hour."

"See you then."

He closed the phone. Tima was standing now, the sandbox abandoned, the architecture forgotten, her entire being oriented toward the road down which Eira would arrive.

"How long is an hour?" she asked.

"About the time it takes to build a really good sandcastle."

She looked at the sandbox. She looked at the road. She sat back down in the sand. The calculation had been made.

Part Three: The Forest Drive

Peter's car announced itself before it appeared — the particular cough of an engine that had been driven hard through valleys and up hills for more years than the manufacturer had intended, the sound of a Toyota that had passed through reliable and ageing and was now in the territory of characterful, which is what people say about cars that work most of the time and make interesting noises the rest.

Tima heard it first. She was on her feet before the car rounded the corner, her hands gripping the playground fence, her body tipped forward on tiptoe, the posture of a child who would climb the fence if the laws of physics and parental prohibition allowed it.

The car pulled up. The passenger door opened before the engine was off.

Eira.

She emerged the way she always emerged — at speed, at volume, in motion before her feet hit the ground, her chestnut curls wild around a face that was already talking, already mid-sentence, already in the middle of a thought that had started in the car and would continue until the thought was finished or she fell asleep, whichever came first.

"TIMA! Tima, we're going to the FOREST and I brought crayons and Peter made sandwiches and I can carry the blanket because I'm STRONGEST and —"