Wilson stands at the kitchen sink, looking over the counter and into the living room, where Isabelle sits in front of the fire, throwing dried pinecones into the flames one at a time and watching them burn. He thinks of telling her to stop, because the pinecones aren’t just pinecones he collected but pinecones he bought, specially treated for use as kindling. But he says nothing. Isabelle has seemed distant today; there seems to be something on her mind. She didn’t show any interest in checking the Coca-Cola stock she’s given him her money to invest in. After breakfast at the bakery, they’d gone, as they always do after breakfast at the bakery, to the drugstore next door to buy the paper. On most mornings, Isabelle finds something or other to buy: a set of markers, a new pad, a candy bar, a barrette. But today she wandered listlessly through the aisles, and when Wilson asked her what she was going to get, she shrugged and looked away. At home, he asked if she wanted to sit with him and draw for a while; she showed no interest. She has been sitting for over an hour at the hearth, just staring and watching pinecones burn. Ruth has gone to run errands; her absence seems to increase the silence in the house, and Wilson wishes she were here.

“Hey, Belle,” he says, remembering the zip cord he’d set up the weekend before that they hadn’t had the chance to use before the Christmas tree lighting. “I want to show you something outside.”

Isabelle turns around and looks at him.

“What do you say?”

Isabelle shrugs and turns back to the fire.

“It’s a zip cord. I set it up for you last weekend. Know what a zip cord is?”

Isabelle turns around again. She looks at Wilson curiously.

“It’s a wire, and you stretch it between two trees, and there’s a swing attached and you ride the swing back and forth across the wire. You zip along the wire, I guess.”

Isabelle licks her lips.

“Want to check it out? Give it a try?”

Isabelle nods.

“Let’s go suit up,” he says.

They bundle up in scarves, mittens, hats, and boots, Isabelle’s new ones miniature versions of her father’s.

Outside, the snow is crusty and deep; a layer of ice coats the trees.

“It’s cold,” Wilson says.

Isabelle nods. She is walking carefully, trying not to break through the snow’s hard surface. On some steps, Wilson notices, she succeeds; on other steps she breaks through the crust, so that the path her footsteps make is uneven, footprints only here and there.