Ted brushed his teeth after they hung up, looking at himself in the mirror above the sink. He was looking at a good man, a decent man. A man who was there for his less fortunate brother. A man who helped his down-on-his-luck neighbor. If that wasn’t true charity, what was? He was surprised Grant had cried. He must trust Ted, to cry in front of him.

It was only later, when he woke up to the sound of laughter, that Ted realized it wasn’t tears, but pot that had made Grant’s eyes red. He felt like putting a pillow over Grant’s face, smothering the laughter and the man along with it. Instead, he put a pillow over his own head and tried to get back to sleep.

SUZANNE SAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE RECOUNTING HER RECENT MISFORTUNES by the light from the kitchen-range hood. It was nearly two in the morning, around the usual time she woke up each night, but it was restlessness rather than hunger that had roused her tonight. Her uterus had been roiling for hours, as if it had a life of its own, she thought—before remembering that it did. It was only Braxton-Hicks contractions, she told herself, false contractions, practice for the real thing. She’d had them with Adam too.

But what if they weren’t false? It was a question she could hardly bear to ask herself. She had taken Dr. Fielding’s advice and had the cerclage, but it turned out that that wasn’t the end of the matter. Hers was still a high-risk pregnancy. The doctor told her to “take it easy.” No heavy lifting, plenty of naps. Naps? She hadn’t taken a nap since she was four years old. She was trying her hardest to be good, but her efforts were complicated by the fact that they no longer had a home of their own.

She couldn’t lose this baby. She felt so close to her. She toyed with names at night, French names—Claire, Francoise, Solange—soft names, floating names, the names of a child not tethered by gravity. She imagined rocking her, nursing her, holding her close. Adam had no use for Suzanne now that he had Jillian. That was misfortune number one: she’d lost Adam to a twelve-year-old girl.