But Henry came a couple times a week and took her and Stella to galleries in Chelsea. Often, he would wear the baby for her. They didn’t speak much. She thought Helen had called him to come look after her. They walked for hours, and he was smart and charming, funny. An almost wholly different being from Martin: he talked less, paused a long time before he answered any of her questions; what is it you do, though, was the thing she never had the courage quite to ask him. But she understood more, she thought, after all that time they spent together, the way he looked so long and careful, not just at the art but on the street. The way he was so steady, the whole time, the way, every time they saw a flock of birds swoop in between a stack of buildings or over their heads as they were walking, he would take her hand or grab her elbow, he’d pull Stella up out of the stroller to make sure that she could see.

Henry texts her about his art now, and she is actually interested after these years of friendship. Sometimes, about every other week, on her way back to the office between meetings, Tess sneaks into MoMA to look at art and try to see whatever Henry and Alice see. Her favorite is Alberto Giacometti, “Annette,” a small portrait of a woman sitting straight in a chair, sharp and ghostly, grays and blacks and browns, blurry up close. She stares at Annette, often for too long, often late then for whatever meeting she has scheduled after lunch. Tess is a litigator, sharp and quick. But after these museum visits she feels less invested in pretending that any of what she’s fighting for or against has any real-life stakes.

Tess hadn’t realized how much she’d miss Alice and Henry now that they’re no longer in the city: the strange elaborate meals they used to cook, their muddled drinks. She hadn’t realized that Alice and Henry are the only people she and Martin spend time with who aren’t like them.

She watches Josh pack one more brick. “Martin,” she says. “Can you come here?”

“What’s up?” her husband says. He’s wearing one of Henry’s aprons. He is chopping onions carefully, precisely—his mother’s son, he has a perfect dice.

“Can you check on Colin?”

“He’s fine, Tess.”

“I’d just like you to check on him.”

“Jesus, Tess.”

She looks at him. She’s using this small thing she has to use against him—the charges, which she’s sure are bullshit, which even his bosses admit are absurd but still, right now, he feels bad about. She’ll use this to get him—this whole weekend, maybe for all the years to follow—to go make sure the kids are safe.