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“Good Morning, Iris.” Laura set down her book. “I trust you slept well?”

“Did you and Uncle Nathaniel have a fight?” Iris asked plainly, climbing up onto the window seat beside her.

“What makes you ask that?”

“He’s grumpy again, like before you came. And you haven’t been to the garden or anywhere at all. Mr. Whipp asked where you’d gone, and I didn’t know what to tell him.” Iris studied her with a frown. “Did I do something?”

“Of course not,” Laura said, patting her hand.

“Was it because I cried at supper?”

“No!” She squeezed her hand, guilt settling heavy and immediate in her chest at the thought that any of this had affected the girl. “No, sweetheart, this has nothing to do with you. Sometimes grown-ups need a little time to sort themselves out, that’s all. It isn’t anyone’s fault. You have nothing to worry about.”

“If you say so.” Iris settled into Laura’s arms and looked out the window. “I’d like to stay and watch the birds from here. You can read if you want.”

“That sounds nice,” Laura said, grateful for the company.

She returned to her novel, feeling comfortable with the girl so close. It was natural, warm, and right.

She looked out at the lake in the distance when a thought came to her.

Laura arranged it the following afternoon, enlisting Mrs. Holt, a hamper, and a blanket wide enough for three, and delivered the invitation to Nathaniel’s study herself before she could lose her nerve.

“A picnic,” she announced from the doorway. “By the lake. This afternoon, if your work permits it. Iris has been asking to show you the lake she and Mr. Whipp found.”

Nathaniel looked up from his desk, a guarded kind of tiredness flickering across his face. For a moment, she thought he might refuse. Then his dark brown eyes moved past her toward the window and whatever lay beyond it, and his shoulders dropped.

“This afternoon,” he agreed quietly. “Yes. All right.”

The lake sat at the bottom of the meadow, ringed with trailing leaves in the water. By the time Nathaniel arrived, Iris had already laid out half the hamper's contents across the blanket and was explaining the frog situation in exhaustive detail.

“There’s at least six of them,” she informed him solemnly. “And one of them is enormous, bigger than my hand. Mr. Whipp says he’s the king of the lake, so I named him King Gerald.”

“Another Gerald,” Nathaniel said, settling down on the blanket with the stiffness of a man who definitely hadn’t sat on a blanket in a long time. “You do have a fondness for the name.”

“It’s a very good name.” Iris handed him a slightly squashed tart. “Laura brought a ball. We’re going to play a game.”

Nathaniel’s eyes flicked to Laura, wary. “What kind of game do you have in mind?”

“Nothing that requires any skill,” Laura replied, pulling a worn leather ball from her basket. “Only enthusiasm. Can you muster it?”

He huffed, and she smirked.

“We stand in a circle and toss it, and whoever drops it must do whatever forfeit the others devise. Iris has already threatened me with a chicken impression.”

“I have not decided on chicken yet,” Iris piped up. “I’m still deciding. It could be a frog.”

“Well, let the game begin,” Nathaniel said, rising to his feet.

They played for the better part of an hour.

Laura watched Nathaniel warm up to it slowly, the way ice thawed at the edges before melting. He was so stiff at first, catching the ball with a precise formality as if fencing. He glanced at Iris as though still working out the rules of a game that had no real rules at all.

He is overthinking this.

Iris was merciless and delighted in equal measure. By the third round, she’d talked him into a forfeit that involved hopping on one foot while quacking like a duck, and the sound of his laugh, rusty and real and raw, was worth every ounce of awkward negotiation it had taken to get him here. Iris grinned from ear to ear, as did Laura.

It was quite a sight.