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Toby’s mop, the fading blond a chronometer of childhood. It was as though the older her children got, the more they came to resemble Will. When she was pregnant for the first time, Will had told Sophie that it was a good thing he was dark, that if any of the MacBrides were to reproduce with another blond, their children might be invisible. Tara had already taken this pursuit of melanin to its logical extreme: Jake’s curls had been a rich dark gold when he was a child, and these days he wore his hair so short it was a shadow on his oak-colored skin. He sat next to Edie’s highchair, helping her guide her food into her mouth.
    “He’s turning out so well,” said Sophie to Tara, so that Jake couldn’t hear. “Aren’t you glad now that Dad and Will bullied you into sending him to the Cath?”
    Sophie immediately wished she’d phrased it better. “Bullying” was absolutely the wrong word for the intervention Rowan and Will had staged, rescuing Jake from drowning in the huge inner-city comprehensive where the children wore what they liked and drug pushers at the gates outnumbered the mothers. Tara, who had never quite outgrown a teenage socialist phase, had interpreted the arrangement and funding of a place for Jake at the Cath as a criticism of her parenting style. Of course, the real shame was not that they had the privilege, but that such privilege was not standard in state education. Lydia had often said that if all children could attend the Cath, the world’s problems would be solved in a generation. Sophie could see Tara’s point, of course, but what were you supposed to do? Sacrifice your children’s education to prove a point?
    Trying to persuade Tara, Rowan had made a throwaway comment about boys of Jake’s color needing the best education they could get to arm them against a prejudiced world, accusations of racism had been flung and Sophie and Lydia had to step in and work hard to convince Tara that they were acting not out of snobbery but love. Tara had remained defensive about the subject, so now Sophie was amazed to see her sister smile.
    “You know he’s made the first eleven?” Tara could not keep the pride from her voice.
    “Under-sixteens, surely?” Sophie corrected her.
    “No, they think he’s going to play for the school next summer.”
    “Tara, that’s unheard of, that’s
fantastic
!” Sophie whispered. “Especially when you think how angry he was a couple of years ago. You must be so proud.” They both glanced at Jake; if he was listening, he was hiding it well. His concentration was all on Edie, spooning food into her mouth and, frequently, her hair.
    “I am, I am. I mean, I’m not deluding myself that that was his
entire
teenage rebellion, and I’m sure there’s more to come, but obviously the Cath’s knocked some of the feral off him. I’m sure one of the reasons he went a bit wobbly at the comp was that they only had games, like, once a week, and you can’t do that with boys, can you; they need to run off their energy or they start looking around for other ways to use it up.” She lowered her voice further. “And actually I think Matt’s done him the world of good, too. Not just because he’s stuck around but because he isn’t trying to be Jake’s dad. He gets that no one would ever be able to replace Louis, so he doesn’t even try.”
    Jake gave up on Edie and produced his mobile phone from under the table. He might not have been able to receive a signal but he could still play
Plants vs. Zombies
until his thumbs seized up.
    Will cleared his throat, but Matt beat him to it. “Come on, Jake, you know the rules,” he chided. “Not at the table.”
    “Sorry,” said Jake, in a voice that went from bat squeak to basso profondo in a single word. Without pausing his game, he tucked in his knees and twisted around on his bottom to get off the bench.
    “The idea was that you left the phone, not the table,” said Matt.
    “It’s not my fault I’ve got no