They’re going to Henry and Alice’s house upstate, though, not his mother’s. Kate, her three kids, and Josh will meet them there. The three siblings—Martin, Kate, and Henry—they’ll not be in Florida for Christmas for the first time in their lives because eight months ago their mother died.

Kate and Josh

“We should be hosting,” Kate says.

They drive a dark blue van. It smells like pee and old bananas, a stale peanut butter sandwich. Josh drives, both hands on the wheel. Beneath Kate’s feet is a stack of sweaters, backup toys, a cooler filled with snacks—hard-boiled eggs and cut-up fruit, carrot sticks and hummus, pretzels, Pirate’s Booty. Behind them, all three of their children are on tablets with headphones. Bea, the oldest, plays a dragon game, her right index finger fast, up and down and sideways, on the tablet’s screen.

“We don’t have room for all those people,” Josh says.

“Next year, we could . . .”

“I need you not to get your hopes up.”

Whenever the topic of her mother comes up, he speaks to her as if she is a child. “Mom would have wanted the house to stay with us.”

“She should have made a will, then.”

Kate’s mother died in May. She left behind her house and nothing else: the slow sludge of legalities right after; filing for the death certificate, waiting for the estate to clear. Martin’s wife, Tess, who is a lawyer, found a renter. They agreed to figure out the sale when they came together at Christmas. Which is now.

“I don’t think she liked to think about leaving,” Kate says.

“She left a mess instead.”

Kate looks out the window. The sky is flat and gray. A bright orange square-shaped truck drives past. She thinks of crawling back into their van’s third row to sit quietly with Bea.

“I watched this thing on YouTube about how to build an igloo,” says her husband.

Behind them Jack grabs a chunk of Jamie’s hair, and Jamie screams and swings his leg toward his twin.

“Both of you stop it!” Josh says, reaching behind his seat to grab Jack.

“Don’t yell at them,” Kate says, turning to touch Jamie. “Deep breaths, duck,” she says to Jack. “Squeeze Mommy’s hand.”

He squeezes, and she hears him breathe and, she thinks, both of them feel better.

She faces Josh again, angry but not talking.

“They act like this because you don’t discipline them,” Josh says.

“Yelling isn’t discipline. You have to talk to them.”

“If you aren’t quiet the rest of the drive, I’ll tell Santa to forget the presents,” Josh says, “no TV tomorrow.”

“You can’t threaten that,” Kate says.

“They need consequences.”

“Are you going to sit with them all day while I cook?”