She and Henry had gone to cut the tree in the woods close to their house, one of the few times in the past year they’ve spent more than a couple of hours together. We have to take advantage, Henry had said. Upstate living. It was a joke they often made, the two of them, when it snowed for days on end or someone made some racist comment to Alice at the grocery store. This time, though, he meant it differently. He’d been trying, the past month or two, to make her smile. He tried to talk to her about his work out in the barn, his flock of birds, about her clients, about the children, politics and weather. Far too often, Alice shut him down.

Once, a few weeks before they got the tree, before the snow started in earnest, Henry made them breakfast, and they ate together, and as soon as he started to try to ask her questions she got quiet and cold and got scared she might start to cry or yell, and he went outside to work. When the door shut as he headed out back, she got in the car, not acknowledging that she knew where she was going, and drove to Maddie and Quinn’s. She was allowed—required, in fact—to show up unannounced to check up on them.

She’d knocked on the door that day in jeans and Henry’s old hooded Bowdoin sweatshirt, her hair pulled back. Quinn was watching TV, Maddie reading. The condo was small and dark, the windows made more narrow by the portion of the place that was built into the ground. It felt warm, though, safe and settled, extra held together. The way the living room was separated from the kitchen with an unnecessarily large wall. Quinn made her a perfect cup of French press coffee. Maddie told her about her book, a princess running away to live with dragons. There was a small, round table in the corner of the kitchen but only two stools, so they’d all sat on the couch, TV still on and none of them talking. Alice had felt better being with them, the sound of Maddie breathing close to her.

“Time for bed, kid,” Quinn says.

Maddie is already half-asleep next to her, the phone the social worker gave her still clutched in her hand. Quinn sets the phone down on the couch and lifts her. Maddie hardly lets her do this any longer, and Quinn is grateful, holding her like this. She wants to tell her that she’s sorry that their family is so small, but also, more people mostly means more awful and exhausting obligations; mostly Quinn’s relieved that it’s just them.

“I have to brush my teeth,” says Maddie as Quinn carries her past the bathroom.