Juliet is teaching me how to lift together lettuce and onions in a large wooden bowl when I absently put an elbow into one of Marco's wine glasses and send it floorward. The wine glass is thin, and well made. We have spent evenings dipping thumbs in the little pool of ruby wine at the bottom of these glasses, gently running them around the rims, making the glasses tremble with pure descant song. This one taps the floor once and turns to shards.

We stare at it.

"Marco is very wealthy," Juliet says. Her voice is shaped in the careless way she tells other people's secrets. I am not surprised. "He has cases of those in the bottom of the study." Neither of us have anything on our feet. I feel the need to flex my toes.

She turns to me, spilling her hair over her shoulder in the strong light from the window. "Do you know the little machines?" She waves her hand at the chaos of the garden. "The machines that are too small to see. The machines that sit in the lawn and keep the grass short, and the bushes smooth." I think of Marco's front garden, immaculate. I think of the drive, free of weed of blemish. The machines are new things, and still quite expensive; I cannot remember what they are called in the stores. "Marco made those. He has a lot of money."

I frown at the back garden, look around at the gentle patina of a kitchen well used. An ant has crawled an and steps daintily over the shards of glass on the floor, tasting the residues of the wine.

"He does not use them in the house," I say. "Or the kitchen garden, or the grounds."

Juliet is watching the ant, too. She nods. "Just the front," she says. "I asked him once about it, and he told me that it is better for us to live the lives we earn." She shrugs. "I will ask him again, maybe."

As we watch, the ant has selected a small shard stained with red and begins to drag it back to the door. I find myself expecting all of the other pieces to move, too, ordering themselves neatly in a small pile and then marching in a shaggy mass in the direction of the waste bin.

Juliet gingerly moves off her stool, testing the floor with her toes. "Be careful," she says, and "look for the dust pan by the sink." She moves off towards the cupboard, looking for the broom.