“Maybe they don’t need to go to summer camp,” says Alice.

“Maybe my little sister doesn’t need to be a spoiled brat.”

“She’s just so desperate, Kate is. How much would two hundred grand even help?”

Martin laughs. “I forget sometimes how rich you are.” Alice wants to tell him she’s not, really, but then, she’s never had to be. She can’t stomach any more talk of his and Tess’s child-centered obligations. She doesn’t mention that the only asset passed directly to her also has her exiled in this place she often hates.

“It’s a lot of money, Martin. But it’s money. It’ll just disappear the way money always disappears.”

They both look out toward the barn. Martin’s drags are long and careful. Alice holds her cigarette between just her thumb and index finger, and her pulls are short and hard.

“What’s he doing out there anyway?” says Martin. “What’s the point?”

“It’s birds,” she says, suddenly defensive.

Martin stubs his cigarette out and puts it in his pocket. “A way to fill the days, I guess.”

“He’s trying to capture something that might no longer exist,” she says.

He looks out toward the barn, and she looks past it toward the woods.

“What’s going on with you, though?” she says. “With your job? Tess said you might be losing it?”

“I won’t, most likely. It’s not worth anyone’s concern.”

“You fuck an undergrad or something?”

He looks angry, she thinks, maybe. His eyes follow her eyes to the woods.

“Shit, Martin, I was joking. Did you sleep with an undergrad?”

“Of course not,” he says. They finally look at one another. “Fuck you for thinking it. I talked shit about one student to another student.”

“Were they female?”

“Does it matter?”

“It feels like it might matter.”

“You social working me or something?”

“I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”

She finishes her cigarette and stubs it, but neither moves to go inside.