Kate looks at Josh, who nods, his hand close to her knee.

“We thought,” says Kate.

“We thought we’d bring the kids up there,” Josh says. “It would mean a lot to Kate, you know, to raise our kids in the house where your mom raised you.”

“The house is worth six hundred thousand dollars,” Tess says. “I’ve seen the other sales close by. If that’s what you guys want, you can buy us out.” She looks straight at Josh.

“We don’t need to break it down right now,” Martin says.

“We don’t have four hundred thousand dollars,” says Josh.

“Since when?” Tess says.

“Since Josh’s inheritance ran out.” Kate angles her body away from Josh, will not mention the tech stocks. “We don’t have that kind of money anymore.”

“Well, you own the house in Richmond, don’t you?”

Kate works to keep her face still. They refinanced to send the boys to a Montessori when Jack got suspended from the public school for the third time for biting. “We owe more than it’s worth.”

“We all have more expenses than we thought we would,” says Tess.

“You make a pretty solid living, Tess,” Kate says.

“We have a mortgage; Colin’s therapist is three hundred and fifty dollars a week; Martin—”

Martin stops her: “It makes the most sense to just sell the house and go our separate ways.”

“Our separate ways?” says Kate.

“We’re not breaking up, Kate. It makes sense to split it evenly, especially if you all need money.”

Tess leans farther forward in her chair and turns to Kate, her body close to Martin’s. “It’s what’s fair, Kate. It’s the cleanest, clearest, fairest thing.”

“But what if we need it more than you do?” Kate says. “The house, the money, it means different things to different people. There are other ways to think of fair.”

“I’m not sure it’s fair to punish us for having jobs.”

“I have a job, Tess,” Josh says.

Tess sits up straighter, looking at Josh. “What would you do if you all moved to Florida? You wouldn’t have a job if you moved.”

“I have some leads.”

“It means something to me, Tess, to raise my kids where we lived,” Kate says. “It means something to me to live in the house where our mom lived.” Kate will not give Tess the satisfaction of crying. If she cries, Tess will say to Martin later how Kate always plays the victim-baby-little-sister, and Kate will not let Tess talk about her like that even if she doesn’t have to be there when she does.

Josh grabs her leg, and in that moment she’s grateful to him, forgives him for losing all that money. “We went down there,” he starts.

“You’ve been down there in the past few months?” Tess interrupts. “To Helen’s house? And you didn’t tell any of us?”

It was perfect, Kate doesn’t say. The brine-salt smell, the heat, the way her skin felt crisp, the flat glass of the water after a storm: it was the closest she’d been to something besides sad in months.