Kate fixes both boys’ bow ties, zips and pulls at Bea’s dress. Josh comes in and asks her what he’s meant to wear, and she tells him; he gets dressed just as she wants. She watches as his thumbs fasten the last buttons, and she thinks again that it was him, his igloo, that saved that little girl. She gets out the sport coat that she brought him, though she imagines none of the rest of the men will be wearing jackets. “Just bring it downstairs,” she says. “I’ll get Tess to take our picture, and then you can take it off.”

In the shower, Alice leans her back against the unclean tiles. Hot water runs into her cut and stings, but she stays still, reaches up to touch the skin around it once. Her hands still ache from the cold. The water pounds and scalds. Her shoulders fold. She scrubs her body, face, and hair and stands a long time, her head back and her eyes closed. She places her hands on the soft skin of her stomach, breathing in for a count of six, out for a count of eight. You’re okay, she says out loud, as if saying is the same as being. She says it because she knows, for now, she is.

They’ve given Quinn and Maddie a small room in the corner of the house to change, to settle; it was the sewing room, Alice told her, and then explained the house used to belong to her grandma. It had boxes of paint and stacks of books that Alice and Henry quickly cleared into the hall. There’s a single window that looks out onto the barn and a small couch. Quinn thinks she will take this opportunity to show Alice how well she can mother, to be good and calm and careful. She will empty the drawer inside a drawer as soon as they’re home.

Quinn holds Maddie close to her: What were you thinking? is what she wants to ask, how and why and what and how again. How did you survive? is what she wants to ask, but Maddie had that good coat Alice helped her find used online and those boots from that same place and her scarf and hat and gloves, and it was cold but not as cold as it could have been, warm enough it rained instead of snowed. She doesn’t ask any of these questions. She hurls palaver at her daughter just to keep her talking, to keep looking at her. “The kids seem nice,” she says. “I’ll get the cookie dough tomorrow, and we can curl up on the couch, and I have a few presents waiting for you when we get home.” She wants to ask more questions; she wants to listen to her, to be reminded every couple minutes that she’s there.

Finally: “Why did you leave, Mad?” Quinn says.