"No, come on, Andy. You know this one. Ik wil graag..."

"A beer. I want a beer."

"Een biertje."

"That's what I said."

She sighs through her nose and props her elbow up against the bar top, using it to hold up her head as she leans into it. "How are you going to teach Aubrey if you don't know it yourself? Harlowe doesn't speak Dutch or Afrikaans. It'll be -- lost." The refrain is familiar: you didn't learn, Jamie didn't learn, it's mum and I, the only Standers left alive. She even says Stander the Dutch way -- Stun-der.

He understands the benefits of learning a second language, but the opportunities he'll have to use that one seem too limited to be useful. Football was what the boys did and that was the girls' thing, the way they connected. He shrugs and she rolls her eyes. For all of the times that he's been called difficult in his life, he feels it's a more fitting descrption of her personality. Where he is quick to leap from emotion to emotion, she settles in, determined. Patient, waiting until he circles back. He can't remember a time in their lives that Amy didn't get something she wanted, no matter how far back he attempts to stretch his memories.

"I don't know why it matters to you. To either of you," he adds, knowing that part of this comes from their mother, holding onto a family that feels too distant to care about. He feels English. "I'm too old for this anyway."

"Ik," she begins again slowly.

"This is stupid."

She turns to the bartender with a grin, sliding a five pound note towards him. "Don't serve him until he says it," she says, her hand covering the money until the man on the other side of the bar nods, agreeing with her. Determined. "Ik wil graag een biertje. Ik. Wil. Graag. Een. Biertje."

He sets his mouth in a firm line and shakes his head, folding his arms across his chest and turning away from her to stare at the mirrored picture above the bottles of liquor. He can see the top of her head as she reaches for the beer she's passed, long fingers wrapping around the handle of the pint glass. They both have brown hair. Maybe that's as far as the family resemblance goes. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. He lives his life by this motto, choosing his family, but as her eyes catch his in the mirror, he can feel his stomach twist.

"Ik wil graag een biertje."