“Colin,” she yells, not caring any longer if she wakes the others. “Baby,” she says, quiet. She wants to break into a run again but reminds herself that that won’t help, that she wouldn’t know which way to go. The woods loom behind the house, acres of them, looking cold and dark. The highway sits on the other side. The snow is deeper back here, and her shoes are soaked, as are her tights up to her thighs.

“Colin,” she says, louder now, but all she sees are trees and snow, and she bounds toward the street calling his name.

Kate hears Tess outside calling to Colin and leaves the room without waking the children. She looks at them, their perfect still and sleeping bodies, all three of them so close to one another. She takes a picture with her phone to look at later when they’re up and yelling, pulls her boots on in the mudroom and her coat on over her flannel pajamas. They’re festive, red and green, and as soon as she’s outside the house she pulls her coat tight around so Tess won’t see.

She runs to Tess. “Where is he?” she says.

“I don’t know,” Tess says, frantic, sweaty. “He isn’t in the house.”

They stare too long at one another. Kate hates feeling helpless; she knows that Tess hates needing. They both call Colin’s name at the same time, and Kate sees a light on in the barn and walks over. The doors are large and heavy, and it takes a while to get one open. She has to pull a piece of wood out of another piece of wood, and then it rolls down on a hinge and she has to pull the door instead of push and then there’s light and cold and the kiln’s acrid, tangy smell and a high and wide expanse of space and her big brother, up close to the ceiling, flat on his back, his arms up in the air, Colin still and quiet on the scaffolding at his side.

Tess hears Kate calling from the barn.

I found him.

She won’t let herself be sure until she has Colin. She bounds through the big, open door, and then he’s there, her boy, still in his pajamas with his coat on over top of them, up high next to Henry, boots on, smiling at her, fiddling with thick pulley-rigged strings. Her boy, she thinks, and breathes.

She whispers thanks to Kate, but she’s not sure she hears.