Simon knew that Maria would never agree to spend time alone with her outside official duties (such as taking a walk), so he had gotten quite used to using Eleanor as an excuse when necessary.

After all, with all the overtime they had been putting in recently, the account books were almost sorted out. Maria also wanted to take a break; after staring at those numbers day in and day out, he was starting to see himself buried under a mountain of digits even in his dreams, turning them into nightmares.

When she heard they were going on a picnic, the little girl who had been quietly eating her fried...