It’s been almost two years, but Alice doesn’t say this. The move, the shift, it all still feels strangely temporary, like they could live here the rest of their lives and it would still feel like a thing they’re trying out. It was sudden and vaguely violent when it happened: this house she got upon the death of her mother’s mother, New York forever unsustainable, Alice less interested than ever in the connection making, network building, that they’d moved there for.

“I like the kids,” she says, thinking again, briefly, about Maddie.

Martin takes another drag and blows the smoke out the side of his mouth. “Why is everything in life that’s pleasurable something that we’re not supposed to have?”

“Things are good with you, then?” she says.

Martin laughs. “How long you think Joshy will keep this up?”

“I think your wife might kill him first.” Whenever Josh walks into a room, Tess’s face gets tight and hard.

“She’s mostly harmless,” says Martin.

“Kate might not agree with that.”

Tess had yelled at Josh their last day in Florida, while they were cleaning out Helen’s house, preparing it to be rented. He kept offering advice on what to say to the real estate agent, useful rental comps he’d found online. He was officious, always, in everybody’s business. You have to stop it, Tess said. They were all so sad and tired, ground down after the funeral and the packing and the cleaning. No one gives a shit, Tess said. Just stop.

For the first time, Helen hadn’t been there to make them talk about it after. Helen wasn’t there to call each of them over the next few weeks and slowly calm them down. Instead no one talked about it. Kate had looked sad and surprised, and Tess had walked out back to the yard to take a breath; the next day they all left.

“You guys okay up here, though?” Martin says.

He’s nicer than Alice lets herself remember. She likes how he seems just slightly more grown-up than Henry. “Your brother is,” she says.

He lingers on his cigarette and waits for her.

“It’s been a rough few years.”