All by herself

autumn light

Grace dancing

It is rare to get a moment alone when you have three sisters. Rarer still is a moment with both parents. I resolve to have time alone with each of the girls but it hardly ever happens. When it does I am always struck by what different people they can be, away from the identity-shaping presence of their sisters and the consequent impost of birth order. Freed from rivalry and petty jealousy, and without the strength in numbers, the bantering and playing to an audience they get from each other, they become at once more resolutely themselves and strangely more vulnerable.