I nod, despite the kick of jealousy in my chest. What a luxury those nerves would be. How much I’d love to be downloading one of those pregnancy apps right now, the ones that tell you every week how big the baby is in fruit-size equivalents. To be able to say to Oliver, it’s a kumquat this week and then, later: almost a grapefruit!

So Dinah’s jitters are hard for me to empathize with right now.

“Anyway.” She glances towards the basement stairs. “Dennis is back soon, right?”

“Tomorrow,” I say. New Year’s Day. It feels sort of symbolic, but not in a good way. Abigail should be here. What will it be like for Sam, starting the new year without her? Meanwhile for New Year’s Eve Mom’s made us a dinner reservation at Brannagh’s, a local restaurant that’s a bit of a Birch Bend institution. We were lucky they still had tables this close to the day.

It’s probably good that Mom made the effort. If Sam weren’t here, Oliver and I would likely just have ordered takeout and watched the ball drop on TV.

I glance toward the basement staircase. While I am relieved that Dennis is coming home, I feel like I’ll miss having Sam around. I feel like I’m just starting to make up for lost time with my nephew, and though it’s only been a few days, I’ll miss the space he takes up in our home. The way the house’s silence feels rounder and fuller when he’s in it; the way he makes our household into a little triangle.

And I really, really thought Abigail would be home by now.

“Dennis hired a private investigator,” I tell Dinah.

She gapes at me a little, even though she was the one who first came up with the idea.

“Wow. This is serious, huh?”

Is it? I wish I knew. Is Abigail just making a statement as she’s wont to do, or is it something different this time? I wonder afresh at my sister, at her talent for delaying the inevitable. Doesn’t she know the price of coming back is that she’ll have to account for where she’s been? That she’ll have to face up to all this one way or another?

I guess she does know that. And maybe that’s the reason she’s gone so silent—because she realizes she’s thrown a bomb into our midst and now she’s scared she can’t just put it back in the box. She can’t afford to stay away and can’t afford to come home.

“Well, anyway,” I say, “I should probably get Sam.”

Dinah nods. There’s an awkwardness between us today, and I wonder if this is just the beginning of me losing another friend to the whirlwind of pregnancy and new maternity.