“No, Margaret must have them waiting for you at the table.”

“Bon. À tout de suite.”

Not even “good morning,” no “how are you? How did you sleep?… I love you.” Only the papers, the black skirt, the passport, the-Deanna’s eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. They didn’t do it deliberately, they were simply that way. But why didn’t they care where her black skirt was, where her slippers were, how her latest painting was coming. She glanced over her shoulder wistfully as she closed the door to her studio behind her. Her day had begun.

Margaret heard her rustling the papers in the dining room and opened the kitchen door with her customary smile. “Morning, Mrs. Duras.”

“Good morning, Margaret.”

And so it went, as ever, with precision and grace. Orders were given with kindness and a smile; the newspapers were carefully set out in order of importance; the coffee was immediately placed on the table in the delicate Limoges pot that had belonged to Marc’s mother; the curtains were pulled back; the weather was observed; and everyone manned his station, donned his mask, and began a new day.

Deanna forgot her earlier thoughts as she glanced at the paper and sipped coffee from the flowered blue cup, rubbing her feet along the carpet to warm them from the chill of the tile on the terrace. She looked young in the morning, her dark hair loose, her eyes wide, her skin as clear as Pilar’s, and her hands as delicate and unlined as they had been twenty years before. She didn’t look her thirty-seven years, but more like someone in her late twenties. It was the way she lifted her face when she spoke, the sparkle in her eyes, the smile that appeared like a rainbow that made her seem very young. Later in the day, the consummately conservative style, the carefully knotted hair, and the regal bearing as she moved would make her seem more than her age. But in the morning she was burdened with none of the symbols-she was simply herself.