Sophie nodded as if this were a reasonable curriculum. She ate the crusts first, a habit since she was four. "Is the tall man coming to the aquarium?"
"No," both of them said, and the unison startled them into something almost like a smile, quickly put away.
Megan left after coffee, hugging Sophie hard and Rachel briefly. On the porch she said to Jason, "Daniel's pacing his kitchen. Call him before he drives over and installs himself." To Rachel she said, "Call Mom when you can stand it. She thinks this is about her pearls. It isn't, but she needs ten minutes of her daughter not being a stranger."
Then it was the three of them and the balloons.
Jason took the trash to the curb, a Saturday gesture so ordinary Rachel could have wept. She found him by the bins, breath visible, mountains a hard blue line beyond the roofs of Pinon Court. Mrs. Ellison's blinds were, mercifully, shut. The aspens made their thin October sound.
"I keep thinking about the text," he said, looking at the bins and not at her. "I sent it from the jetway. Daniel picked me up. We laughed about how you hate surprises and how Sophie had threatened to explode if she couldn't hide behind the couch. I was happy. That's the part I can't put down. I was happy two hours before I hated you. The happy isn't canceled. It's just sitting in the same room. I don't know what to do with a feeling that doesn't know it's obsolete."