When Alice and Henry still lived in the city, Tess and Alice used to meet for coffee in the middle of the workweek. They weren’t close, but the regularity of their meetings made their interactions feel more solid to Tess then. She liked to listen to Alice talk about art, her friends and colleagues; liked the way her whole world felt separate from what Tess had always thought she wanted, how she thought she had to live. Tess would always be a little bit embarrassed—sitting in the downtown coffee shops that Alice frequented, close to the studio where Alice rented a small space to paint and show her work to gallerists—by the stolidity and sameness of her suits.

Now they talk a couple times a month, they text.

“We got them for the kids,” says Henry.

Tess watches Alice, whose face stays placid. Alice and Henry don’t have children, though they tried for years.

Martin comes through the door with the first round of bags, and Stella slips out of Tess’s arms, pulls off her shoes, quickly hugs her aunt and uncle. “Keep an eye on those big kids for me, will you?” Henry tells her.

Stella smiles at her uncle. “Got it,” she says.

“This hair is perfect for this face,” says Alice, coming toward Stella.

Martin sent a picture last week on the family group text (Tess seldom sends texts on the family group text)—new haircut: Stella with blunt bangs and her hair chopped to her chin.

Stella reddens, hand to her hair, dutifully says thank you. Alice lets go, chastened; Stella bounds into the house.

“Can I help?” Henry asks. He’s a broader version of his brother. Two inches taller. The same strong jaw but wider, a flatter, less long nose.

Martin nods, hands him the keys. Henry heads out to the car.

“How’s it going?” Tess asks Alice.

“Great,” says Alice, her eyebrows raised and her lips scrunching. Her hair’s cut close, and her sweater is dark blue, long and drapey; Alice holds it, wrapped over both sides of her waist, as she talks. She’s beautiful, Tess thinks each time she sees her. When they met for coffee, Tess almost always got there first, and she would watch Alice come in from across the room and wonder what it might be like to look like that; saw the way other people looked at Alice as she walked by them, the power she must have. She has light brown skin, dark eyes. They’re all in their forties, but Alice—her skin so smooth that Tess used to worry she wouldn’t be able to help herself, would reach out to touch it—could easily be mistaken for twenty-five.

Now Tess laughs and holds Alice’s arm close to the elbow. “Great,” she says.

“Josh is building an igloo,” says Alice.