She lifted her out. Tima was warm from sleep, dense and heavy in the way that recently-woken toddlers are — as if gravity has a stronger hold on children first thing in the morning. She curled into Steph, one fist on the collar, one fist on Hoppy, her face pressed into Steph's neck. She smelled of sleep and the lavender wash from last night and something else, something underneath, the specific scent that every child carries and that belongs to no one else.

Eira didn't stir. Eira could sleep through anything. Eira had slept through a thunderstorm, a smoke alarm, and, on one memorable occasion, Peter accidentally dropping a toolbox on the kitchen floor at seven in the morning. She was committed to sleep in the way she was committed to everything — completely and without compromise.

Steph carried Tima downstairs. The house was cold — the heating hadn't come on yet, wouldn't for another half hour — and their breath made faint clouds in the kitchen. She settled Tima in the highchair, wrapped a blanket around her, put the kettle on.

"Muh," Tima said.

"Milk. I know. Coming."

She warmed the milk, poured it into the cup with the handles, set it on the tray. Tima took it with both hands and drank — that serious, intent, eyes-straight-ahead drinking that toddlers do, as if the milk might escape if they weren't sufficiently focused on it.

The kitchen filled with the hum of the kettle and the ticking of the radiator coming to life and the small, steady sounds of a house waking up. Steph made her tea. She stood at the counter and watched Tima drink and felt the particular quality of December mornings — the darkness outside, the warmth assembling itself inside, the sense that the world was smaller in winter, drawn in, held close.

Tima put the cup down. She looked at Steph.

"Da," she said, pointing at the window. Outside, the street light cast its orange circle on the pavement. Frost glittered on the cars.

"It's still dark," Steph said. "The sun's not up yet."

Tima considered this information. "Da," she said again, with slightly different emphasis, as if she were filing an amendment.

"The sun will come. It's just slow today."

Tima picked up the cup. Drank. Put it down. Picked up Hoppy. Put him down. Picked up the cup. The morning rhythm of a child who is awake but hasn't yet decided what being awake will require.

By half eight, Eira was up, breakfast was a war zone, and Steph was mentally calculating how much time she needed to get two children into outdoor clothes and out the door before the market got too crowded.

The answer, as always, was: more time than she had.