“Her precious babies,” Alice says, though she likes Tess. She likes Kate too. Mostly, she wants all the kids to stay so she can let them crawl up on her lap one by one and breathe them in.

“She’ll calm down,” says Henry. He nods toward the half-empty punch pitcher on the counter. “Bring her more of that?”

“You can’t work tonight,” Alice says. “Just so we’re clear: you can’t leave me until everyone is safe in bed.” The house is drafty, its heating faulty. Alice started a fire to warm it up before the kids arrived. She chopped extra wood, sweating in her coat and cashmere sweater; they already had plenty, but she wanted to move, breathe hard, before the mess of them bore down.

In summer, Alice has a small garden out back. She likes to show the children, let them taste test the tiny berries, kale and mint and basil. Tess and Martin have been up a handful of times since Alice inherited the house. Growing up, Alice flew alone from California for a week or three in summer while her parents went somewhere far away and fancy—a Tahitian cruise, Nice and Biarritz and Paris. Her grandma, Elinor, thrice divorced and widowed, didn’t seem much interested in Alice, though unlike at home in San Francisco, where she and her mother mostly ate at the kitchen counter with the TV on while her dad worked, they ate all their meals together in the dining room. During the day Alice wandered out back in the woods—at six and seven, fifteen—a little shocked each time she went out farther, sunburned and mosquito bitten, to find her way back to the house before dark. For all Elinor’s indifference toward Alice, she’d actively disliked Alice’s mother, and so Alice had inherited the house.

It was Henry’s idea to move, but it was Alice who made it happen. This was often true for them. Henry thought of something, wanted something, and Alice executed it. Henry made work, but dinner, money, the deployment of any major life decisions, that was mostly Alice’s job. This Christmas, just like every other Christmas since they got together, she was the one to purchase and to wrap all his family’s gifts. She’s stocked the pantry with the kids’ favorite foods, processed snacks that Henry hates the wrappers and the waste of; she has the coffee each of his siblings likes, extra blankets on the beds for when the house gets cold at night. She has been a good wife to Henry and to Henry’s siblings and their families; the least he can do now is not leave her alone with them.