Saturday morning, the Clare family had an actual cooked breakfast. Macey would have to tell Nana and Papa. A meal with all three of them sitting at the same table, and the ingredients were hot and did not come from a fast-food restaurant. Macey whisked out china plates just in time to catch the food as it came off the skillet.

Toast, bacon, scrambled eggs, orange juice and potato chips.

“Stop that, Alec,” said Mom. “Put away those potato chips.”

“If we were at the diner, I’d have home-fried potatoes,” he defended himself. “It’s practically the same.”

“You’re not at the diner. Potato chips are junk food. Stop it.”

“I like potato chips.” He crunched.

Macey would omit the potato chips from the breakfast menu she told Nana and Papa. She was so happy to be sitting down with her parents. They muddled around the house in the comfy way of Saturday morning. Dad had another cup of coffee. Mom did a crossword and Dad squinted at the sports page.

“You know,” said Macey, “Venita said they don’t have computers in their high school. None at all.”

“That’s a shame,” said her father. “I think I’ll go for a run. Want to run with me, Mace?” He stretched hugely and yawned and sprawled on the couch, not like a man about to go for a run.

“No, thanks, Dad. Mom? Do you think that giving people old and crummy stuff is the right thing to do, if they don’t have anything at all, or do you think everybody ought to have new stuff?”

“Not everybody can afford new,” said her mother. “And it’s good to make use of old things that still have some life in them. That reminds me, I cannot postpone putting together the recycling stuff another day. Want to help, Alec?” She trekked slowly to the mudroom, hoping Dad would offer to pile and bind and tote. Dad lay low.

From the mudroom, Mom’s giggle was clear and silly. “Macey, you saved your marshmallow stick? Now I know the family desire to fill up back porches has reached the ultimate.”

Macey ran to save her stick. They honored each other’s junk piles, but you never knew what might get tossed when somebody was in a cleaning mood.

“What’s special about it?” said Mom.

Austin carved it for me, Macey thought. It has his fingerprints on it. We both ate half of a perfectly toasted marshmallow, like a bride and groom sharing the first piece of wedding cake.