EVA TOOK UP SPACE WITH a loud restlessness, a bee stuck in a room with all the windows shut. She touched things, talked about the things she touched, asked questions about them—Is this painting supposed to be the Veluwe? Was this your mother’s vase?—took to circling the gardens with a cigarette in hand, put her fingers to the petals of shrubs, the trunks of trees. Isabel avoided her. Isabel watched her from an upstairs window. Isabel dug her nails into her wrists and breathed steadily through her nose.
