She slept.

Kelly woke to the smell of coffee. She opened one eye. They were standing at the bedroom door, smiling. Both of them. Identical smiles, where warmth and mischief combined.

Rafael was dressed in the same casual cords and soft sweater he’d been wearing the night before. Last night Matty had been wearing jeans and a soft blue coat. Now he was wearing almost identical cords to Rafael and a sweater of the same colour as well. They looked…They looked…

She blinked fiercely. She’d been awake for seconds and she was close to tears already.

‘H…hi.’

‘Hi, yourself, sleepyhead,’ Rafael said, carrying in a mug of steaming coffee. ‘Mathieu. Toast.’ Mathieu almost saluted, but his hands were occupied in balancing a plateful of toast.

The toast was spread liberally with marmalade and butter. Yum. But…

She glanced at the bedside clock and sat bolt upright as Matty reached the bed with the toast. It was almost a calamity, but not quite, for Rafael moved like a big cat, pouncing on the plate, lifting it away while spilling not a drop of coffee.

She was stunned, but she was still staring at the clock. ‘It’s after nine,’ she stammered. ‘How…’

‘We turned off your alarm clock,’ Matty said proudly and removed the plate of toast from Rafael’s grasp and put it carefully on her knee. ‘Uncle Rafael and me woke up really early because it doesn’t feel like morning. Uncle Rafael says it’s because we’re all the way round the other side of the world and the sun hasn’t caught us up. Uncle Rafael says if we keep flying we’ll catch up with it again but we don’t want to keep flying yet ’cos we have to give you toast. And the man outside in the uniform said you’ve been really, really sick and someone ought to look after you ’cos you sure as hell don’t look after yourself.’

He paused, looking up at Rafael with uncertainty. ‘Did I say that right? In Anglais?’

‘You certainly did,’ Rafael said. ‘I told you my mother’s American,’ he told Kelly. ‘Matty’s been brought up bilingual. Isn’t he terrific?’