“Deep breaths,” Martin says, half joking, trying. Martin, who is good and steady, a solid partner, has been called up on review by the university where he was—still is, for now—a full professor. He’s been forced to take a leave as of this month, and he’s less prone right now to look straight at Tess when they talk.

Tess laughs at him. “I’ll get Stell,” she says, opening her door.

Both the children are too big to be carried, but Tess whispers her daughter’s name as she unhooks her from her seat. Stella mumbles, opens her eyes, looks at Tess, and settles herself more firmly into her mother’s arms. Her face and back are wet with sweat, chin-length dark hair stuck to her cheeks. The weight of her is warm and solid, and Tess thinks she might hold Stella like this the whole time that they’re here.

Colin stirs, face slack, skin splotched. He has the same dark hair as his sister, cropped close to his head because he can’t sit still enough to get any cut besides a full-headed, thickly clippered buzz. He shoots both arms over his head. “My neck hurts!”

“You just have to move,” Tess says. “Get out and stretch.”

Martin steps out of his way as Colin climbs out of the car. He’s big all of a sudden, Colin. The top of his head reaches almost to Tess’s shoulder, and he talks to her as if he doesn’t quite believe she should be trusted. She wants to walk over to him, brush the wet red of his cheek, rub her thumb along his neck. But she does not.

The yard’s covered in snow, thicker than it looked from the car, and Tess thinks she should find Colin’s boots in the trunk before his shoes get soaked, but he’s already bounding toward the house. Tess follows close behind with Stella in her arms.

The mudroom is made up almost completely of large windows, an unfinished wood floor. Boots and coats are piled on a bench that Henry built, which takes up one whole wall and half of another. Snowshoes sit crooked in the other corner, a couple sleds—and Alice and Henry are at the door. Alice reaches down and wrestles with Colin’s laces, gets his shoes off, stands and hugs him, holds him. Colin’s arms and back stay stiff.

“Hey, kid,” Alice says.

“Hey, Aunt Alice,” Colin says.

Henry grabs him quickly by both shoulders. “You must get that height from someone other than your dad.”

Tess watches Colin avoid eye contact with Martin. He smiles at his uncle and runs into the house to find Kate’s kids.

“A couple of years up here and now you’re into sports?” Tess says, nodding toward the sleds.

Alice smiles at her. “You’ve been in the city so long you think sleds are sports?”