My eyes drifted to the smorgasbord of food artistically arranged on a period marble-topped coffee table. On a white platter were caprese bites arranged in a smiley face pattern. Eliot bravely tried one but found the medley of mozzarella cheese, basil, and tomatoes not to his liking—I saw him spitting out the half-chewed mush into his napkin and tucking it into his pocket. On another plate were tiny hot dogs wrapped in equally tiny croissants, which were Sydney’s favorite. Another dish contained meatballs stabbed with toothpicks, a recipe I had given Debra back when Cody first introduced me to his parents. Though I’m sure she didn’t make her sauce with grape jelly and chili sauce like my dad had taught me. Debra was way too classy to use jelly in any recipe. Maybe preserves, but never jelly.

Only now did Sydney take a break from her food coma to notice me. “Auntie Marin!” she squealed, rushing me with open arms. Swooping her up in the air, I planted kisses all over her sticky face. We had been explicitly told by Debra to keep the mood light for the sake of the kids.

“You taste delicious! How’s my little Syd Squid?” I exclaimed, setting her down.

“Nana made teeny tiny hotdogs. O-M-G, try one!” Sydney had recently started talking in text. OMG this. BTdubbs that. I imagined she had picked it up from Vera.

“I bet they taste almost as yummy as your face.”

A moment later Eliot slammed into my legs, wrapping his arms around me like a mini left tackle.

“Hey, bud!” I knelt down to speak to him at eye level. “You practicing your football moves, huh?”

His cheeks were inflated like a chipmunk’s. He flashed a picket fence smile flecked with chunks of meatball.

“Don’t answer until you swallow, okay?” I grinned.

“Okay, Auntie Marin,” he said, spraying bits of beef all over my face.

After the kids wandered back to the sofa closest to the food, I felt the heat of tension rising up my neck and face. I didn’t know how to act, what to say. Every word could be a bomb; every gesture a grenade. Felicity shuffled in front of the long line of windows, checking her phone every couple minutes as if it might ring at any moment with the news that Vera had been found safe and sound. Oliver seemed to have lost the energy to follow her as he hung back, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Debra distracted the kids with a game of Connect 4, while Cody approached Joe, who grabbed him in a greedy hug.

Joe’s shoe-polish black hair always had a soft gloss to it, and while Cody had inherited the rich dark color, the thickness gene had skipped over him and went straight to Oliver. Cody’s receding hairline took a hard whack at his self-esteem, but I actually liked it. It kept him humble.