Ruth hastily put out her cigarette when she saw Timmy standing in the hallway and rubbing his eyes.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Did you have another nightmare?"

"Noah's talking in his sleep again," he muttered. "I can't sleep. Can I watch TV with you?"

She sighed, looking up at the clock. It was already almost midnight. But she patted the couch next to her. "Just for a little while."

Timmy sat cross-legged beside her, furrowing his brow at the jokes on Saturday Night Live. He listened to the David Bowie performance, though, paying attention to every move the singer made.

"That singer is the Goblin King in the Labyrinth movie," said Ruth. Timmy's eyes got big.

"No way."

"Way. I used to want to be the girl in that movie. Sarah? I always liked that name." She pulled the sleeve of Timmy's pajama shirt down. He promptly squashed it back up around his elbow. "What was Noah talking about in his sleep?"

"I don't know. It didn't make any sense. He was crying about something but I couldn't tell what."

Ruth would probably have asked more questions, but the door banged open. She could hear loud whispering and giggling at the foot of the stairs. She frowned.

"Timmy, go back to bed," she said.

"But I don't want to —" he began, then paused when he heard Aaron's too-loud voice, slurring.

"It's the middle of the fucking night! What kind of a mother lets her kids stay up this late?"

"Go on," she urged, and this time, Timmy scrambled down from the couch and ran back to his bedroom. The door shut behind him.

A moment later, Aaron's face emerged, coming up the staircase and flanked by two laughing young women. They were all carrying bottles of beer.

"What kind of a father lets his whores get caught with open alcohol in the car?" she retorted. When he gave her the finger, she gave it right back.

"Who's she?" asked one of the girls. She couldn't have been more than seventeen.

"My old lady," Aaron said, looking her up and down and giving her a signature leer. "You're gonna have to decide if we're gonna make her sleep with the kids or invite her into bed with us."

"Fuck you." Ruth stood up, pointing toward the couch. "That's where you get to sleep. Or whatever you're going to do. Just make sure your joints and empties are cleaned up before the kids get up tomorrow. And use a fucking condom, all right?" To the girls, she said, "He's got crabs. And herpes. Terrible case, you really don't want to see."

"I don't, babes, honest," he was saying in his most sincere voice.

She shut the door to Timmy and Noah's room. Even if she could have had the bedroom to herself, she wasn't about to leave her boys alone to sleep in a house with unfamiliar people.

"Ma?" Timmy asked, sounding worried.

"It's fine," she said aloud. "Go back to sleep."

Noah was still crying in his dreams, thrashing periodically on his big-boy mattress. When Ruth crept into bed beside him, he woke up.

"I can't see her," he sniffled. Already his cries were softer, but his expression in the dim room was wretched. "It's too snowy."

"Shh," she hushed. "You'll see her in the morning." Whoever she was, it didn't matter.

Aaron was attempting to serenade his two guests while high on whatever it was he'd taken. For a few minutes while she hummed and Noah settled down, she considered calling her brother and having him pick them up to crash at his place, but she didn't really want to remind Samuel exactly how dysfunctional her marriage really was. He already disliked Aaron enough as it was. Besides, he had enough to worry about with his partner being sick. They could tolerate another night like this.