Ruth arrived at four with a carrier bag full of photographs and a plant she could not name.
‘Your father knew,’ she said, putting it on the hall floor. ‘I keep thinking I'll ask him.’
She looked towards the garden. Remembering how often she used to ask him had made her smile, but the smile did not last.
Leah took her coat.
‘It has purple flowers in spring,’ Ruth added. ‘Daniel will know.’
‘That doesn't narrow it down much.’
‘It will to him.’
Ruth hugged her before Leah could put the coat on a hook. She wore a soft wool cardigan under it, and Leah pressed her face into the shoulder. Her mother rubbed the back of her head as she had done when she was little and frightened of thunder.
‘I wish he'd tell me properly,’ Leah said.
‘He's not worth asking again.’
‘I loved him.’
‘I know.’ Ruth's hand stopped, then began again. ‘I know you did.’
They stood in the hall until Leah could let go. Her mother did not say she should have known better. That helped. So did the simple pressure of an arm around her.
Anna appeared with the red coat over her shoulder.
‘Please tell me you haven't brought six albums.’
‘One album and some loose ones. We need a photograph of your father for Saturday.’
‘We have photographs of Dad.’
‘We need the right photograph.’
It would have been her father's birthday on Saturday. The first year after he died, Ruth had asked everyone to come to the house because she could not bear spending the day alone. They had done it every year since. This time there would be a few friends from her singing group too, people who remembered him before his hair turned white.
Leah had forgotten until Anna reminded her yesterday. She felt bad about that, then tired of feeling bad about everything.
Ruth opened the album on the dining table. A photograph of her father leaning against a gate slipped out. He had his eyes closed against the sun.
‘That one,’ Leah said.
‘He looks asleep.’
‘He looks happy.’
Anna came to look. ‘Leah's right. The suit ones look like he's waiting for a delayed train.’
Ruth put the gate photograph aside without agreeing aloud. Leah recognised that small concession. Their mother could be persuaded if nobody required a speech about it.
Daniel came in from the kitchen with a short wooden stake. ‘I've mended the support. Do you want to see before we put it back?’
Ruth left the album immediately.
Leah followed them outside. It had rained earlier, and wet grass darkened the toes of her trainers. Anna stayed at the table, matching photographs to empty spaces.
The greenhouse door scraped across the paving. Daniel held it up while Ruth went in, then eased it down behind her.
‘He was going to fix that,’ Ruth said.
‘You told me he liked the sound.’
‘He said it stopped burglars. I said a burglar would have to want a tomato very badly.’
Daniel laughed. ‘I thought you meant the shed.’
‘Oh, he had a different explanation for the shed.’
Leah watched him set the stake beside a tall plant. He waited while Ruth turned it twice and chose the angle. She was wearing narrow shoes entirely unsuitable for a greenhouse. There was a pair of muddy boots under the bench, and she changed into them without looking for a bag or asking where they were.
This had been their family home until Ruth sold it to Anna and Daniel. Her flat was close enough to walk from, but it had no garden. Leah knew about the arrangement: Ruth came on Tuesdays and Fridays, kept an old jacket here and helped with the plants. Seeing it was different from hearing about it on the phone. Her mother looked occupied. Daniel looked pleased to have her there.
‘The purple plant's by the door,’ Ruth told him.
‘The one from your balcony?’
‘It doesn't like the wind.’
He went to fetch it. Ruth reached for a pair of secateurs hanging from a nail.
Leah moved a tray so it would not drip on her mother's sleeve.
‘You remember where things go,’ Ruth said.
‘Some things.’
‘You can help me on Friday.’
Leah looked at the tray. The thought of Friday being arranged already made her feel less adrift. ‘If I'm here.’
‘Of course you'll be here.’
Daniel returned with the plant and knelt to inspect its roots. Ruth bent beside him, talking about the balcony. Neither of them needed Leah for the next few minutes.
She walked to the back wall, where her father had scratched a line into the brick to show how tall she was at thirteen. Anna's line was a hand's breadth above it. Daniel had left the marks uncovered when he painted the wall. Leah touched her own with a fingertip.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
Mira had sent a photograph of a bright orange jacket hanging in a shop window.
You would hate this until you put it on. Then you would become impossible. Shall I buy it?
Leah typed, How much?
Too much. We're going in together and insulting it until they reduce it. How's the room?
Nice. I'm in the garden with Mum and Daniel.
Good. Sofa remains available. Also the cinema on Thursday. No discussion required, just a woman doing very questionable things in a car.
Leah smiled. I'll tell you tomorrow.
Actual answer, please. I'm seeing it either way.
It was a relief that Mira had something she wanted to do without Leah. She could say no without ruining another person's evening.
When Leah went back, Ruth had finished with the plant. She was telling Daniel about the time her husband had bought three identical raincoats because he liked the first one so much.
‘And I had to spend ten years seeing that same coat,’ she said.
‘I only remember one,’ Leah said.
‘Exactly.’
Daniel wiped his hands on a cloth and checked his watch. ‘We should leave in ten minutes.’
‘I've plenty of time.’
‘Last week you said that and arrived during the warm-up.’
‘The warm-up is an appalling noise.’
She took his arm on the way out, stepping over the uneven paving. Leah could remember her taking her father's arm in the same place. It hurt, then it helped to see her doing it with someone who slowed down for her.
At the front door, Daniel lifted Ruth's coat from the hook.
‘Are you singing the old one tonight?’ he asked.
Ruth hummed a few bars. He joined her badly on the last note.
‘That,’ she said, ‘is why you're only the driver.’
Leah laughed. Daniel looked back at her, still holding the coat open. His smile changed a little when he saw hers, and she found herself looking down.
Anna brought the chosen photograph into the hall.
‘We're using this. I'll put it in the frame before Saturday.’
Ruth took it and studied her husband's sunlit face.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘All right.’
She kissed Leah's cheek, then Anna's. Daniel followed her out to the car.
Leah stayed at the window while he helped Ruth with the seat belt she always caught beneath her handbag. It was an ordinary kindness. There seemed to be a hundred of them here, all happening without anyone announcing that the world was good again.
Upstairs, she hung her few clothes in the spare-room wardrobe. She laid the torn bag flat at the bottom. The purse went into a drawer.
Then she stood in front of the picture of the dancers until she could imagine being one of them again.