“You should sleep.”

I looked at him. “You should hug me.”

He scooted closer to me, got one arm under me and put the other around me. I pressed in tight to him and closed my eyes. His lips brushed against my cheek and my eyelids and I sighed. I needed the day to end, and the best way to end the day was the best way to end all of my days.

Falling asleep in my husband’s arms.

TWENTY NINE

Emily walked out into the living room and turned in a slow circle. “Does this look alright?”

I’d spent the next day paying attention to the house and not plotting revenge on Eleanor Bandersand. I’d swept and mopped the floors, done three loads of laundry, worked on a geography project with Will, a painting with Sophie and cursive practice with Grace. I’d run both girls to guitar practice and taken Will to the computer store to buy more memory for his computer. I’d pulled out the winter hats and mittens and gone through the stacks of mail sitting on the kitchen counter.

Call it domestic immersion therapy.

I finished stacking LEGOs in their container. Grace and I had just finished building a bank for criminal min figs to rob. Maybe the detective of LEGOville would be wanting my investigative services.

I glanced at Emily. She had on tight jeans with silver beads around the pockets, a long-sleeved black top and boots that came up to her knees. Her long hair was straightened and her makeup a fraction heavier than usual.

“Does it?” she asked, casting me a worried look. “Look alright?” She glanced down at her outfit.

“Yes, as a matter a fact it does,” I said. “Why are you dressed up?”

She stared at me for a moment, her mouth hung open. “Uh, duh? I’m going to the game. With Andy.”

I ran through my thoroughly flawed mental calendar. “That’s tonight?”

“I told you it was.”

“You did?”

“She did,” Will said, stretched out on the sofa, tapping away at his phone. He’d downloaded some football game app two days earlier and was already on the top ten board. “I heard her.”

Jake came down the stairs and frowned. “Oh, that’s right. It’s date night.”

“You knew, too?” I asked, pushing myself up off the floor. A tiny LEGO pushed into my palm and I winced.

“Yeah, she told us,” he said.

I looked at Em. “Sorry. I’ve been preoccupied.”

“It’s fine,” Emily said dismissively. “But seriously. Do I look okay?” She did a half-turn so I could see.

“You look beautiful,” I said, smiling at her. And then I gasped. “Oh my God. This is your first date!”

“Mom,” she warned, shaking her head. “Don’t make this a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” I said. “It’s your first date!”

“We’ve done stuff before.”

“What kind of stuff?” Jake asked. His eyes narrowed. “You’ve done stuff? Where? When?”

“Not like that,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Like what?” He was like a bloodhound. “What has Randy tried to do?”

“Andy,” she corrected. Her cheeks had blush on them but they flamed even redder with embarrassment. “And I just mean we’ve gone places together. We’ve hung out. It’s no big deal.”

“If it’s no big deal, then why are you so worried about how you look?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Why does your hair look like you just spent an hour on it?”

She didn’t have a quick response to that so she did what she always did when she was flustered: she reached for her phone.

“She bought new lip gloss, too,” Will said, his fingers flying over the touchscreen. “Like three of them.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You are such a stalker.”

“Which means she’s probably gonna kiss him,” Will said, ignoring her. “I heard her talking to Bailey about it.”

“Liar.”

He shrugged. “Just saying what I heard.”

“You’re such a loser.”

“Because I don’t have three kinds of lip gloss?”

She groaned and stomped back into her room.

I followed her. “Hey.”

She sat down at her desk-makeup table-area-that-made-her-look-like-a-hoarder. “What?” she barked.

“He’s your brother,” I said. “He’s supposed to tease you. And he’s probably a little jealous that you are older and that you’re going on a date and the only girls he ever talks to are his sisters.”

She almost smiled. “Maybe. But he’s still annoying.”

I sat down on the edge of her bed. Her room was packed floor to ceiling with books and clothes and makeup and charging cables and other things I couldn’t identify. Her room had slowly morphed from a little girl’s to a teenager’s, with most of the stuffed animals disappearing, replaced by the clothes and the books and the make-up and the electronics.

“I’m sorry I forgot about your date,” I told her. “Or wasn’t listening or whatever happened.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s really not. But you look terrific and I’m glad you’re going and Andy seems like a nice kid.”

“He’s cool,” she said, trying to maintain her teen aloofness without giving too much away.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll bet he is. Do you need money?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

“Do you need birth control?”

“Mom!”

“Look, at some point, we’re going to have to have that conversation.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be tonight,” she said, still fussing with her makeup. “We’re going to a basketball game, not a hotel room.”

“You’re going to a hotel room?” Jake yelled from the living room. “What?”

“Ignore him,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s more nervous than you are.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“No? Then why is your shirt on backwards?”

Her hands flew to her chest, frantically searching for the exposed tag.

“Gotcha,” I said, smiling.

She sighed. “Ha ha. Funny.”

I stood from her bed and put my hands on her shoulders, careful not to muss her hair. “Anyway. I hope you have fun tonight. And I hope you’ll tell me a little about it when you get home.”

“There won’t be much to tell,” she said, setting her lipgloss down. “It’s a Prism basketball game. We’ll lose by fifty.”

“Still,” I said. “I’ll want to hear about it.”

“Okay,” she said. “But not when Will’s around.”

I patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll tie him up and throw him down in the basement while you’re gone. I’ll be all ready to go when you get home.”

“He’ll still manage to hear us,” she said.

“Carrots,” I said. “I’ll shove carrots in his ears after I tie him up.”

We both smiled. Then I heard Jake in the kitchen talking, along with an unfamiliar voice. “I think your date is here.”

Her shoulders rose and she sat up straight. “He’s early. Oh my God. I’m not ready.”

I patted her shoulder. “Good to see you aren’t nervous.”

THIRTY

“Andy, what are your plans?” Jake said, cornering poor Andy on the sofa in the living room.

“Well, I thought we were going to go to the basketball game.” He was perched on the sofa like a deer might sit; ready to take flight at the earliest opportunity.

“And then?”

“Uh, come home?”

Jake waved a hand in the air. “No, no. I mean in life.”

I put a hand on Jake’s shoulder and smiled at Andy. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel button-down shirt and his dark hair was mussed just enough to tell me he’d purposely styled it that way. The smell of Axe body spray clung to him and I was pretty sure he’d shaved for the first time ever that day, considering the number of nicks lining his neck.

“Hi, Andy,” I said. “Please excuse Jake. He hit his head on a pipe earlier and he’s not quite himself.”

“I did not,” Jake said, frowning at me.

Andy looked confused. “Uh, okay.” Then he looked at Jake. “If you mean what do I want to do, I think I want to be an engineer.”

Jake folded his arms across his chest. I couldn’t tell if he was irritated or impressed by Andy’s career choice. “What kind?”