“I’m serious,” said Nick. “He’s having a hard time.”

Yeah, well, my best friend just died, I thought. Which Nick knew—he’d sent me a sad-emoji-embellished text message after I finally posted something about Jenny’s death on Facebook. Maybe our shared DNA sent out some sort of distress signal, because he added, “Hey, speaking of, how are you doing? With your friend being gone?”

How was I doing? How long did he have? My heart broke at least five times a day, and that was when I was doing my damnedest to keep my focus entirely on work and family. I was desperate to get to the stage where the sight of Cecily—who was currently running through the backyard as Miles chased her and Stevie with a water gun—would not fill me with the kind of sadness that made me want to weep in bed for a week. And even though I was struggling with my marriage project, I felt guilty for the progress Sanjay and I were making. At least we still had a chance to fix our relationship.

“I don’t know, Nick. I’m doing all right. The kids are happy and healthy, and I’m getting a chance to spend a lot of time with Cecily.”

“Cecily?”

“Jenny’s daughter.”

“Right.”

I sighed. “So, what’s going on with Dad?”

“Well, he’s having some health problems.”

My heart lurched. “What kind of health problems?”

“That’s probably something you should talk to him about.”

“I don’t get it. If he called to tell you, why couldn’t he call me?”

Nick paused. “He didn’t call me. I was flying through Florida a couple of weeks ago, and I stopped to see him. He looked like hell, so I pushed and found out he’s got some stuff going on.”

This admission stung more than his forgetting Cecily’s name. Nick hadn’t been out to see us in several years, but he had managed to see our father, who hadn’t made enough time for him a day in his life. “I can’t fly to Florida right now, Nick. Do you think he’ll tell me if I call him?”

“Don’t know, Pen-Pen,” he said. “You know Dad—hard to get him to say much about anything other than the Orioles and the weather. But you should probably try.”

Through the kitchen window, a pair of small brown birds watched me from their perch on the fence. One pecked at the other for a few seconds, then the other craned its neck and returned the favor. One of the birds flew into the sky and then disappeared from sight.

I thought about my brother diving out of his bedroom window in first grade to see if he could fly. Immediately after, he’d come running to me to say that his arms hurt but he was sure he’d caught air. “Nick?” I said.

“Yeah, sis?”

“I’ll call Dad. Come see us sometime, okay?”

“Sure, Pen. That sounds great.”

“Love you,” I said to the dial tone.

When I set down the phone, Sanjay was looking at me.

“What?” I sounded as dispirited as I felt.

“What?” he repeated.

“You were staring at me like I made some unintentional gaffe. What did I say?”

Sanjay glanced at the timer on the microwave, which he’d set for the nuggets. Then he met my gaze. “What happened to ‘stop making everything look easy’?”

“How was I doing that ?”

“Pen, even after everything that’s happened lately, you’re still smoothing things over with your brother instead of telling him that he sucks for never coming to visit.”

“Need I remind you that I’m the one who told you I wasn’t happy with how our marriage was going? That’s hardly smoothing things over. And what about what I said to Yolanda after she said Nancy’s scholarship was a lucky break? I even told Matt that Cecily needed more attention. Nick already knows I’d like to see him more often, and I’d rather leave it at that. I don’t want to be that woman. ”

He scrunched up his face. “What woman?”

“You know the type. You say hi, and she immediately launches into a laundry list of what’s wrong with her life.”

Sanjay put his hands on his head. “Penelope, I’m not asking you to turn into Debbie Downer. I just think you feel the need to make it seem like everything is fine, even when it’s the exact opposite.”

I was seething. Make it seem like everything was fine! I didn’t do that—not anymore. That I was standing in my kitchen fighting with Sanjay was proof.

“Even when you’re direct, you still manage to avoid confrontation,” he added.

“Are we not in the middle of a confrontation this very second?”

“Same team, Pen. I’m trying to be honest with you.” He walked over to me and put his arms around my waist, but I shook him off. He couldn’t just stand there insulting me and think I’d want to cuddle. “Okay. But you said you were ready for the next thing on my list.”

“And I am,” I said defiantly.

“Good. I want you to be more honest with everyone—not just me. This project is a start, but you could be taking it further than our marriage.”

Had he missed everything I told him about Yolanda and Matt? “How?” I said.

“Well, I wish you’d tell Nick and your dad that you feel like an afterthought to them.”

An afterthought. That’s what I was, wasn’t it? My face was growing warm, and my throat was tightening.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he said, but he sounded defensive. “All I’m saying is that if things aren’t okay, then don’t act like they are.”

“Fine.” I waited until I was sure I could speak without crying. Then I said, “Since we’re being honest, I’d like to know how your job search is going. I’m glad you’re doing so much around the house, and trying to be more engaged in our marriage. But money is still a major issue, and I don’t think the book project is going to fix that.”

He looked wounded. “I haven’t had anything to tell you. I’m sending out application after application. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Sure,” I said. “It counts for a lot.”

“Thank you. I’ll let you know if I get any bites.” He leaned against the counter, looking like he was on the verge of defeat. But he couldn’t raise a white flag yet—at least one of us needed to be all in on our project. “It’s been nearly a month. Do you really feel like this is improving our marriage?”

He had just told me to stop faking it, and I had agreed. But there was honest—and then there was stupid. “Yes,” I lied.

NINETEEN

I might not have known how to fix my marriage, but I knew how to be a good parent, and I threw myself into the task. I read to Stevie every single night. I woke even earlier so I had time to build elaborate Lego spaceships with Miles before leaving for work. I helped the kids and Cecily set up a lemonade stand one weekend. The next, I took them to a waterpark and let them shove cotton candy into their little mouths with abandon, then gently coaxed them out of their sugar-induced meltdowns an hour later.

July was nearly over, though I couldn’t say where the time had gone. But around midmonth, Miles had stopped wetting the bed; one dry night became two, and suddenly all four of us were sleeping straight through until the morning.

Jenny often liked to say that success stuck when it came with a reward, so one Saturday afternoon while Sanjay took Stevie to dance class, I took Miles to buy a toy. I knew he would play with it for three hours before requesting a new one. Still, when we pulled up in front of the toy store, you’d think I had just given him the keys to the kingdom.

“Can I get anything I want?” Miles asked, looking up at me expectantly.

“Not anything, love,” I said, tweaking his nose. “You can choose something that costs up to fifteen dollars, remember?”

His eyes grew even wider. “Fifteen is a lot, right?”

Not anymore it wasn’t, but I wanted to bask in the role of Best Mom Ever for at least a few minutes. “Let’s go see what we can find,” I told him.

Miles tore through aisle after aisle with a joy that made my heart ache. I could not remember a time when my own father had let me pick out my own toy. Would my son ever realize how fortunate he was—to have parents who not only bought him presents, but who also loved him as much as we did?

My mind quickly turned to another six-year-old who would never again visit the toy store with her mother. Cecily’s list of nevers would be excruciatingly long, and my being there for her simply could not fix that.

“This?” Miles was holding up an action figure in front of my face.

I examined it. “It’s twenty dollars, which is five too many. And you said you were scared of that guy.”

“Yeah,” he said, placing it back on the shelf.

“This?” he said two minutes later, holding up a bright-orange pistol.

“Sorry, you know the rule. No guns.”

He scowled but put the gun back.

He returned with a zombie figurine that was guaranteed to have him peeing the bed until he was seventeen. I winced and shook my head. Who had decided to put such a thing in a children’s store? And why had I agreed to come here again?

I was sure our outing was seconds from going south when Miles ran down the aisle to where I was standing. He was clutching a dinosaur, which he presented to me. If the packaging was to be believed, four batteries would transform the plastic beast into a roaring relic.

“I want it but it’s sixteen dollars,” Miles said mournfully.

“It’s fine.”

“You’ll buy it?”

I nodded. He dropped the dinosaur on the floor and threw his arms around me. “I love you, Mama.”

I squeezed him back. Sixteen dollars for him to call me Mama like he had when he was a toddler? A steal.

When we got home, Stevie was sitting in the entryway, still dressed in her leotard and tights. Her arms were crossed and she was scowling. He held out his dinosaur toward her, which she regarded with disdain. “You know that’s actually made of real dinosaurs.”