She could have taken her sleeping pills and nodded off with Frieda and Nick hours ago. She thought about it, perched on her niggardly slice of bed with the shampooed children crowded into her lap—the only place they could all three gather with any comfort in this cold, in the starkness of the sparsely furnished flat. She wondered, while she turned the pages of Dr. Seuss, why she shouldn’t just amputate this misbegotten day and knock herself out? Night is the hardest, and this night, it had become unmistakably clear, was going to be no different. But there was one mildly attractive alternative to the pills—something that would make her life incrementally better tomorrow, requiring nothing more of her than dumb, animal labor. She settled the children in their cots, switched off the upstairs lights, and carried the box of painting supplies into the parlor.

“All right then,” Ted said, having grunted with the pram, still filled with Nick, up the front steps and over the threshold, then kissed both children and assured them casually that he would come back very soon. More of the zoo, if they liked. He nodded briefly at Sylvia, then turned toward the steps. Sylvia glared at him from behind the door, holding it partially open to let him pass. Nick was tugging her coat, cartoonish tears popping hugely from his eyes, gibbering desperately for help out of the pram. Frieda stood by, wordlessly observant. Ted was down the four steps, glancing left, then right, hesitating—

“What?” he asked, turning around, facing Sylvia at the door. “What?”

She didn’t speak. She assessed him coldly. His drooping coat hanging from his shoulders. His exasperated mouth, his distracted exhaustion. Her resentment, which had been this morning something loose, a floating thing, something that might just have broken up like so much cloud cover, had hardened over the hours walking beside Ted, grown diamondlike.

“What, Sylvia?” he repeated. “What else do you expect me to do?”

Sylvia still didn’t speak. Words were rushing past, flooding her head, too quickly to be stopped. His intolerable immunity—how could he simply turn his back, just walk away?

Her face was stony, impenetrable. She spit out the words under her breath. “I know where you’re going.”

Ted stared up at her where she was hiding behind the door. “How could you possibly know where I’m going?” he asked. “I don’t know—I haven’t the faintest notion where either one of us is going. I don’t know where we’re going.” He stood on the footpath in front of the house, his breath frosting white before his face in the darkening afternoon, watching Sylvia.

“Let me know when you’d like me to come back,” he said finally. “To see the children,” he added, noticing her grimace and quick to clarify his meaning.