They stay too late, and it starts to get dark, and Alice feels sure Tess will be annoyed with her. She gets three texts from her: checking in. Each time, she sends a new photo of the kids to the family group text. Alice has snow in her boots, and her hands are wet from rolling snowballs, but it feels good, exhilarating, to move her body this way, to run, to be outside, to sweat. She watches Henry ride down the hill on the sled with Stella on his lap. Jamie and Jack chase after them on foot, Colin behind them on his own sled, screaming at them to slow down, his hat flying off his head. Bea comes up behind her with a snowball and throws it at her and Alice bends down, rolls a snowball of her own and throws back, but Bea ducks, runs toward her brothers, throws more snowballs at them.

Alice sees the two bodies from far away and tells herself it’s not them, not to get her hopes up. But it is them, walking through town, close to one another, talking, laughing, happy: Maddie and Quinn.

“Who’s that?” asks Stella, close behind her.

“Who?” asks Alice, starting.

“That,” says Stella, pointing toward Quinn and Maddie.

“You shouldn’t point at people,” Alice says, pulling Stella’s arm down.

“Who is it?” Stella says. She looks at Alice, rubbing her arm where Alice grabbed her. “That hurt.”

“No one,” says Alice, and immediately feels bad. “Sorry,” she says, reaching for her. “It’s just some people I know from work.”

“I’m starved,” says Colin, close behind them, his hat back on, cheeks flushed, the hair around his face wet with sweat and snow and stuck to his head. “I might die if you don’t feed me now.”

“Do you have snacks?” Jack asks, close behind his cousin, panting, pulling his brother behind him on the sled.

Alice rifles through her bag but she gave them all away at work last week.

“She’s not a mom,” says Bea, pulling two sleds and shaking snow from her hair as she gets closer to them. “Non-moms never have snacks.”