right, but I’d discovered more about my children’s lives on these rides than in any other situation. “Who started it?” I asked, intentionally not mentioning Bailey’s name.
“Not sure.”
I slowed down a little more. This felt like a ten-block conversation. “Are you going to do it again?”
“No,” she muttered.
All I could see was the top of her head. The part in her hair was straight as a ruler, the two ponytails drooping down. For no known reason, tears smarted in my eyes. I loved her so much. . . . I winked the wetness away. “Are you sorry you did it?”
She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything.
“Jenna? Are you sorry?”
“Do you think he hates me?” Jenna whispered.
This conversation was like the quote about writing a novel; it was like driving from coast to coast in a dark fog, seeing only a hundred feet of pavement in front of the headlights. “Do you think he does?” If we were talking about Paul Richey, the answer was no. If we were talking about a boy in her school, the answer might be different.
“I would if I were him,” she said.
To my right, Oliver was still busy counting. “Ninety-one, ninety-two . . .”
Three blocks to go. Time for Mom to come up with some miraculous way of making everything better. Unfortunately, my bag of magic was flat empty. Well, except for the one surefire trick. “Have you told him you’re sorry?”
Half a block later, the answer came like a soft breeze. “No.”
“Do you think apologizing would help?”
“Maybe.”
“If you were him and he was you”—I grimaced at the atrocious grammar, but communication was the important thing—“would you want him to apologize?”
We drove the last block; then I clicked on the turn signal for the approach up our driveway. From the backseat came a very, very quiet “Yeah.”
“Maybe you should do it tomorrow.” I pulled the garage door opener off the visor and handed it to Oliver. He pushed the button with his thumb, and the door rolled up. “Get it done, and then you don’t have to think about it anymore,” I said.
We rolled onto the garage’s dry concrete, and I turned off the windshield wipers. “A hundred and thirty- seven,” Oliver said firmly. “I counted all the way from Mrs. Neff’s house.”
“Good job, Ollster,” I said. “You’re the King of Counting.”
Jenna unbuckled her seat belt, grabbed her backpack, and rushed inside. I helped Oliver with his buckle and held the booster seat while he jumped out. “What did Jenna do?” he asked. “Is she in trouble?”
So much for his not paying attention. “If Jenna wants to tell you, she will.” That meant he’d never know; Jenna wasn’t prone to sharing confidences with her little brother. I had high hopes that someday they’d be friends, but that day was probably decades distant.
“Oh.”
His voice sounded even smaller than usual. As we shut the car doors and headed into the warmth of the house, I studied him with the eagle eyes of a concerned mother. Oliver had a naturally cheerful personality, but now all I could see were sagging shoulders and dragging feet, and the voice in my head was Lauren Atchinson’s.
I hadn’t seen eye to eye with the school psychologist since she’d suggested Jenna’s basic nonreaction to the divorce could be linked to a deep fear of men’s genitals. But I knew a way to bring Oliver back to life. And with any luck it would bring Jenna and Oliver closer together, too.
Not so very long ago I would have called Richard before making a decision like this. He was their father, after all, and had a right to be involved in anything that affected their lives. But he was out of town, and Oliver needed this right away. Besides, I knew what Richard would say.
I dropped my purse in the study and headed to the kitchen. Jenna had already run upstairs, but Oliver had put his backpack on the kitchen table and, kneeling on the seat of a chair, was sorting through the contents.
“Mommy?” He turned, holding out a scribbly drawing. “Robert says this looks like a whale, but I want it to be a dolphin.”
Jenna plopped into the chair next to Oliver. “What’s that? Looks like a shark.”
“It’s a dolphin!”
Time to head off the impending argument. “Who wants some popcorn before dinner?”
Five minutes later the popping slowed to a stop. I poured the popcorn into a bowl, then drizzled melted butter and salt over the top. “Ready?” We ate the first ritual piece solemnly, then dug in for great greasy handfuls. “Normally,” I said, “we have popcorn on Sunday, right?”
“Um-hmm.” Grunts of agreement came through stuffed mouths.
“And sometimes we have it when someone is sick. Why else do we have popcorn during the week? No talking with your mouth full, please.”
Oliver reached for another handful. “We had popcorn when Mr. Stolz died.”
Oh, geez. I’d forgotten about that. The kids had been all excited about its being their turn to run the garden train and had run down the street, only to find an empty house and drawn shades. I’d given them hugs, talked about heaven, then done my best to distract them with food.
Jenna looked at me, her hand midway to the bowl. “Are we having popcorn because Mrs. Mephisto died?”
“Partly.”
“Whaf’s fe ofer pah?” Oliver asked.
“No talking with your mouth full.”
He swallowed hugely. “What’s the other part?”
I wiped my buttery fingers on a napkin. “Remember the time we had popcorn when I told you about our trip to Florida?”
The spring break trip had been a gift from Richard. “Take the tickets,” he’d said gruffly, and I’d cried myself to sleep that night, certain the divorce had been a horrible mistake. The next day he’d e-mailed the itinerary he’d worked up for the trip—new activities every thirty minutes, kids!—and I hadn’t cried over him since.
“Are we going to Disney World again?” Jenna’s eyes went round.
“No.”
She heaved a tremendous sigh, then shoved a massive handful of popcorn into her mouth. Her cheeks pouched out like a chipmunk’s. I closed my eyes briefly and decided to let this skirmish go. “You have to pick your battles,” my sister Darlene once told me. She had four children, and all four had evolved into functional young adults, so she must have done a few things right.
“We’re not going to Disney World,” I said, “but we are getting something.”
“Are we getting . . .” Oliver didn’t finish the sentence. His gaze was locked on me. “Are we. . . .” Hope was in his eyes, his face, his hands, his entire body.
“Wha—?” Jenna said, spitting out a wet and half-chewed kernel. “Are we what?”
I looked at Oliver. He knew.
His grin started small, then grew and went from ear to ear and practically all the way around his head. He jumped out of his chair and hurtled around the table in leaps and bounds. “We’re getting a dog, Jen! We’re getting a
The store was quiet. The lone customer was having a grand time chuckling over picture books by Kevin Henkes. Lois was at the front computer, working on a flyer for the Halloween party and humming an ABBA tune.
I found Paoze in the back corner, dusting the wooden puzzles with the raggedy feather duster that had been in the store as long as the store had existed. One of these days I’d have to get a new one.
“Paoze, I need to talk to you.”
