Nancy hadn’t smiled—truly smiled—in years. She’d perfected the imitation for Catherine’s sake, because no daughter that young ought to see her mother wear despair like a second skin. Children absorbed sadness like sponges; she would not let Catherine’s world sour so soon.

It wasn’t entirely Robert’s fault. He had never been a lively man, not even a particularly affectionate one, but he was decent, dependable. Before the war, he had been present in his own quiet way—buried in manuscripts, yes, but there. Now, the war had left its imprints on him. His nightmares tore through the house at night; his screams jolted Nancy awake and sent Catherine running, terrified of the father she barely knew.

Robert was at his best when writing, lost in the act of creation. But inspiration had abandoned him, leaving him restless, brittle, forever staring off into some unreachable distance. And as his moods waned, so too did hers. If he was content, she found a measure of peace. If he was agitated, she wore the same unease, trying only to keep the household afloat.

Her art bore the burden as well. Commission after commission left her hands with shadows stitched into every canvas. Melancholy bled from her onto the page, but somehow people wanted it. Wanted the gloom, the heaviness. Perhaps they saw honesty in it. Perhaps misery sold better than joy.

Still—it was no way to live. Not as a mother, not as a wife, and certainly not as an artist. She’d once dreamed of laughter in Oxfordshire, of a home full of warmth, children underfoot, her sketchbooks full of light. Now she longed for something far simpler: to laugh again, genuinely, without effort.

And then, unexpectedly, her wish was answered.

In Robert’s frantic pursuit of inspiration, he’d discovered your work. Stories, poems, scraps of prose—each word struck him. He invited you to Oxfordshire to assist him with his next manuscript. Nancy doubted he’d imagined you would become her salvation as well.

At first, she resisted the arrangement. Another presence in the house felt like intrusion, but her misgivings evaporated during your very first conversation. You’d said something—wry, absurd, perfectly timed—that startled a genuine smile out of her. The first in years.

From there, it only grew. When you weren’t closeted away in Robert’s study, you were in the garden with Nancy, comparing the different worlds you’d known, teasing out the threads of what connected them. Sometimes she confided her grievances, not all, but enough. And when you took her hand, the weight of the past lifted for a moment, the ache quieting.

Her art began to bend toward you as well. More than once, commissions became reflections of something you’d told her about America, or your musings on Britain, or life itself. And in her private sketchbook, your silhouette appeared again and again—faceless, anonymous to anyone else. But she knew. She always knew.

The realization unsettled her. How could one woman, one Robert himself had invited, shift her world so entirely? She found herself imagining your absence and recoiling at the thought. Robert’s trips to London no longer troubled her, so long as you remained. It was your company she cherished, the companionship she had longed for since the start of her marriage.

Now, Robert was in London with Catherine. You had planned to join them but stayed back when plans fell through. Nancy, truth be told, was grateful.

The morning was golden, sunlight spilling through tall windows as Nancy worked at a commission, charcoal smudging her fingertips. She bent close to the page, chasing lines, until she heard the door and turned her head. You entered with that quiet ease of yours, and even first thing in the day—hair unkempt, eyes still heavy—you seemed luminous to her.

“Morning,”

Nancy mumbled glancing down at her sketch, tried to return her focus, but her gaze betrayed her, tugged back toward you with a smile.

“God, how do you manage it? I wake up looking as though a storm’s passed through me, and you…you stroll in as if you’ve stepped out of some painting. It’s hardly fair."