Kate does not mind the way they pick and talk at her. It’s all blunted and familiar; she can answer without thinking. She grabs hold of them, their arms and bodies, hands on cheeks, clasping shoulders. Soon, ducks, she says. You get dessert no matter what.

They’re heroes, she thinks, Josh and the kids, though this is not right. But they did, her children, save that little girl. The fucking igloo. Out the window, she can see its shape has changed almost completely. The children took out one wall when they found Maddie. The temperature has risen, and the other half has begun to cave and wilt.

Her sweet husband, she thinks. He walks past, and she grabs him, kisses him, both hands on his face; he grins.

How close they were to something awful. She can’t say now how thrilling it was to get close to it but not to have to touch it, not to have to feel its force. Everyone okay, the thrill of knowing, feeling fully, what an extraordinary gift their all being safe here and together is.

Alice sets down plates one after the next, her hands unsteady. She folds napkins, lays down knives and forks. Spoons? she calls to Kate in the other room; Not until dessert, Kate calls back. She sets down glasses, wine for grown-ups, water for the children. Water for the grown-ups. She fills the pitcher, slices the foil off the top of the wine and uncorks it, leaves it to breathe next to a candlestick.

Martin whips the whipped cream; Josh has been sent to pick up pies. This is blasphemous to Henry, Martin, and Kate, who were raised by Helen—store-bought pies. A woman from the farmers’ market has a special table outside Food Town, and Henry’s friends with her because he’s friends with all the farmers, and she said she had a couple extras, and everyone decided it was best to send out Josh. Tess cleaned up the other pie, which had been on the floor, splattered, a little, on the wall, and now there is no trace.

“Duckies,” Kate calls. She’s leaning over, lighting each of the four candles. Her dress, a rich green velvet—a present, a few years ago, from Helen—pulls and braces, tight across her chest and back. The matches are the nice kind: the big, hard box, the large, red, rounded tops. She likes the hard press of thumb, wood to cardboard, the snap and pull and burn, palm rounded as she makes contact with the candle’s wick, and then the thrill of all four of them alight. Someone has plugged in the tree lights, too, and the only other sources of light are the two lamps behind the living room’s half wall. Kate will not think about her pie on the floor, and if she doesn’t think about it she won’t cry. She is grateful that Tess cleaned it up before she had to look at the leftover mess of it.

“Stell?” says Tess. “Colin?”