When Alice told her, just after the twins were born, that they were “trying,” Kate hadn’t known what she meant at first. To make more art, to be more successful, she thought. This was not long after Alice’s Big Show that Kate had come to, early in her third trimester. It had been stunning, she thought: massive, dark collages. That evening, she had kept sneaking looks at Alice, her tall, thin frame, across the room, attempting to imagine how she’d made such huge, beautiful things on her own. There was a precision to it up close, meticulous, Kate kept thinking, which was a word she didn’t say out loud to anyone in case it was wrong.

Kate’s life then was loose and messy, murky, the specific drudgery of having a small child and two on the way—she’d quit already to get ready—shapeless days that all felt the same. In the months that followed, she’d mostly disappeared inside the endless morass that was her kids’ wants and needs. She didn’t mind this, though, mostly; she quite liked it, though this was not something that she often shared. It was a relief, in fact, knowing so clearly every day what her tasks were, that they were worthwhile, dull and mushy but also intimate and private, solid; Kate could tell no one other than Helen how much she liked being a mother. It was not the motherhood that wore Kate out, it was the shame she felt for wanting only to be that.

Alice brews the coffee and grills an egg and bread. Whatever’s happening outside, there are plenty of grown-ups. She doesn’t want to talk to Henry, wants nothing more than to talk to Henry.

When they first met, she couldn’t get enough of him. He was everything everyone she met in art school wasn’t: determined, single-minded, completely uninterested in talking about himself. He worked all day and night, and this was also new to Alice. She had been shocked, the whole time she was in grad school, by how little actual work her colleagues did. They did so much more talking about work, drinking; they slept with one another. None of this interested Alice. She worked and sometimes, when it interested her, she engaged. Other times, she stayed quiet in the back. She wanted to make something no one else had, something Big, Important, though she would not ever have admitted this to anyone. She thought for a long time that she might make work that lasted. But the truth was, no one needed art the way they needed food and shelter. No one needed art the way they needed to be kept alive.