One of my earliest memories is of my sister, my mother, and me, curled up together in the evening under the quilts of our bed. My mother was reading Danny the Champion of the World, one arm wrapped around each of us. Bach A minor 2nd movement was playing on repeat in the background. She would read to us until we drifted off to sleep, dreaming of Danny and his father in their caravan, filling capsules with sleeping-pill powder and creeping out into the night on their poaching hunt.

The nightstand lamp with its honeyed glow was always on when we fell asleep. And in the morning when we woke up, my mother would be there still, with her arms around us. The bedroom window faced east, and the sunlight would filter in with its clean white morning rays that made the dust floating inside them visible. To this day, I cannot hear one measure of the Bach 2nd movement without imagining Danny and his father creeping through the forest of sleeping pheasants.