“We have to move our bodies,” Quinn says.

“I don’t want to move my body.”

“Animals?” Quinn says.

“I’m a bear,” Maddie says. “Hibernating.” But she lets Quinn pull her off the couch.

“We can split one of those pints of ice cream when we get home,” Quinn says. “If you just go look for birds with me for an hour?”

6

The houses were a failure, Alice sees now, cleaning up the frosting and the candy. The frosting wasn’t a strong enough adhesive. Stella’s caved as soon as she got up to wash her hands, and Bea cried because hers barely held together in the first place. Colin and the twins left their walls all in a pile after eating half.

“Anybody want to go sledding?” Alice says, to make things better. There’s a hill closer to town where kids go on snowy weekends. Alice is desperate to not have to talk to anyone for a while. If they go sledding she can stand quietly while the kids throw themselves down the hill.

“We need more than one car,” Tess says.

“Henry and I can take them.” Alice grabs hold of Henry. “Right?” she says, nodding at him. “They’ll all fit in our car. Give you all a break.”

“I could use the time to make one more call to Santa,” Kate says, winking at Jack and Jamie, sweeping the last pile of their crumbled walls into a garbage bag.

“We could get started on the pie dough,” says Martin, pouring what’s left of the candy back into its container.

“I have some work I could catch up on,” says Tess.

“Brilliant all around,” Alice says. She grabs hold of Stella and Bea, nods toward Colin. “You guys go get ready, and I’ll pack the car.”

Kate leans her head against the cold car window. They’re halfway to the outlets two towns over. Josh ripped a hole in his gloves making his igloo and needs a new pair. Kate got worried she has too many gifts for Bea and not enough for the twins.

Josh makes his Tess face—he squints his eyes and puckers his lips and looks stern and scoldy—and Kate laughs. She tightens her jaw, sucks her cheeks in, makes her Tess face back.

“Fair is fair,” Josh says, shrilly.

Kate stops laughing. “She’s not wrong, though,” she says. “It’s not fair, what we’re asking for.”

“Oh, fuck fair,” says Josh. “They’re all spoiled brats.”

“It’s not just money, though,” she says. “They should . . . that house means more than that.”

Out here it’s ugly, highway, strip malls, all that brown and gray again. Kate wishes for the thousandth time that they were in Florida.

“I think Henry might be up for it,” she says.

“We just have to prove to Tess that she’ll still get her money in the end,” he says.

“Fuck Tess,” she says, which feels satisfying.