The knock came at ten past six, which meant Erik was running late, which meant Peter was in the car with the engine running and a particular expression on his face that Steph didn't need to see to know was there.
She opened the door. Erik stood on the step with Tima on his hip and a bag over his shoulder that looked like it had been packed by someone in a hurry, which it had.
"Sorry, sorry — Peter's —"
"In the car. I know. Go."
"Her milk's in the side pocket. The inhaler's in the front zip. Hoppy's —"
Tima held up Hoppy. The hippo's purple eye-patch was askew. He looked like he'd had a long day.
"I can see Hoppy," Steph said. "Come here, cariad."
Tima reached for her — that full-body lean that toddlers do, the absolute commitment of weight before the hands arrive — and Steph took her, settling her on her hip with the practiced ease of a woman who had been carrying children for four years and whose left arm had developed accordingly.
"She's had dinner," Erik said. "Well — she's had some dinner. She ate the potato. She posted the broccoli behind the sofa. I'll deal with that when I get back."
"Don't worry about the broccoli."
"She might need changing before bed. And she's been —" He paused, looking at Tima, who was now examining the zip on Steph's fleece with forensic interest. "She's been a bit clingy today. I don't know if it's teeth or —"
"Erik."
He stopped.
"She'll be fine. Go."
He looked at his daughter. Tima looked back at him with the even, steady gaze that she gave to most things — the gaze that made her look not like a twenty-two-month-old but like someone much older and quieter who happened to be very small. She reached out and touched his face with one hand, a flat, open-palmed press against his cheek.
"Papa," she said.
"I'll see you Sunday, love." He kissed her forehead. He kissed it again. He looked at Steph over Tima's head and something passed between them — not worry, not quite gratitude, something more like the unspoken contract they'd been honouring for two years now: *I'm trusting you with the most important thing I have, and we both know it, and we don't need to say it.*
"Go," Steph said, softer this time.
He went.
Steph stood in the doorway and watched the car pull away — Peter's old Toyota, the exhaust visible in the cold December air, the brake lights flaring once at the corner and then gone. Tima watched too. She was still on Steph's hip, one hand on Steph's collar, the other holding Hoppy by his ear. She didn't cry. She didn't call out. She just watched the space where the car had been, as if waiting for it to come back, and when it didn't, she turned to Steph and said:
"Gone."
"Gone," Steph agreed. "But he'll be back."