“What about takeout?” my father suggested. “We can bring it to the playground we passed at the school. Have a picnic.” He smiled a little. “I mean, it’s not like it’s gonna rain on us.”

My mother stepped back into the restaurant to place an order with the hostess. Burgers, a salad to share, those amazing onion rings I’d seen passing by. A side of macaroni salad.

“Diana doesn’t eat macaroni salad,” my father interrupted.

My mother glanced down at me. “Since when?”

“Since she got food poisoning two summers ago after eating it.”

“Of course,” she said. “I knew that.”

Then why did you order it? I thought.

In the entryway of the restaurant was one of those carnival machines, where you’d put in quarters and try to pick up a stuff ed animal with a claw. I had begged my father for money (and had been denied) enough to know that the odds of getting what I wanted were so slim, it wasn’t worth the expense. Instead, I jiggled the buttons, pretending that I could maneuver the claw. From the corner of my eye, I saw my father slide an arm around my mother’s waist, saw her settle against him like a ship coming to dock. He whispered some-hing to her, and when she laughed, I felt a smile rise in me, too, like the fizz in a soda.

When our food came out in little white Styrofoam containers, the hostess stacked them in a plastic bag, which my father carried in one hand. With his other, he held on to me. My mom took my other hand, just like the way they used to when I was really small, when they would swing me between them and I’d feel perfectly balanced, like an astronaut hitting zero gravity or a roller coaster at its apex. I didn’t know of many fourth graders who wanted to go around holding on to their parents’ hands, but I didn’t feel like a baby at that moment.

“Mom,” I asked, turning toward her. “What’s an adrenaline junkie?”

She thought for a second. “Someone who lives for the things that make their heart pound,” she said, “even when they’re scary.” Then she squeezed my hand, like she was passing me a secret.

Like she knew that on the back of the green blotter on my bedroom desk, I kept a tally of every day she was gone. And that when she came home, I tracked how many days I had with her before she left again.

Maybe I had more in common with her than I’d thought.

•