Sylvia stands near the stove, her back to Ted and their children, whisking eggs with a fork in a bowl she holds at a tilt. Even little distances—her back to the table—feel vast; every remark and gesture is perilous. She’d like to simply turn around, address her children, ask Ted a question, but there’s no easy way in. This is where estrangement becomes most manifest: it’s not when one’s husband has packed up and gone; it’s when he’s in the same room. Simple intimacy—there’s no such thing. There is no small talk when one is heading for divorce, no robe sleeve meaninglessly brushing the back of a coat as a door is locked.

She ransacks her mind: Is there anything benign to say, any way for her to insert herself? She can hear her ownership of the day hissing as it deflates. Ted’s presence is crowding her kitchen, backing her confidence to the walls. He’s bigger than ever, hulking like a friendly giant over the children, who lift their flower faces up to him. He’s bigger than she is.

She beats the eggs. Beats the eggs, involuntarily muted. She puts down the fork and checks the flame under apple slices browning in a pan. Her mouth hardly moves.

“Want tea?”

Ted looks up, turns his head. He pauses in his response, as if taking note of the weather in the room. “Yes,” he answers, “that would be lovely.”

What would be lovely, she’d like to know: the tea, or that she’s offering? There it was again, her hostility. She could hardly keep it down. It popped out, like a foul burp.

“What?” he asks, looking around at her, incredulity in his voice.

She turns, the kettle in her hand. She shrugs. “I didn’t say anything,” she says.

“Oh,” he says.

She places a white china mug on the table before him. Nicholas is banging his empty, double-handled cup on his tray. Ted begins slowly to stand, as if not to startle Sylvia, lifting Frieda cautiously off his knee and onto a chair of her own.

“No—I’ll get it,” Sylvia says, too swiftly. She puts down the kettle and turns toward the icebox for the milk.

Ted sits, settling Frieda as well. “So will you come with us to the zoo?” he asks without looking up, cautiously floating his question, disembodied, into the room. Sylvia approaches Nick’s high chair, gripping the cold neck of the milk bottle.

“No.” She is holding the baby cup. She is pouring the milk. “I have too much to do,” she announces.

Ted leans his chin over Frieda’s shoulder. “Will you come with me to the zoo?” he whispers in her ear.