Mr. Sibley was not even an echo.

They left the middle school. Macey headed for the first shortcut toward Nana and Papa’s.

“No. I’m starving,” said Austin. He took her shoulders and rerouted her. “We don’t want asparagus omelets,” he said firmly. “We want Big Macs.”

McDonald’s was as familiar and public as the hall at school.

They did not touch cheeks. They did not sit next to each other, but facing.

They had hot salty french fries, and thick slurpy milk shakes, and burgers with bacon and lettuce and tomato and cheese.

Macey was as happy as she had ever been in her life.

Sparks flew, but they were not in a place where anything could catch fire.

It did not matter. It was spring, and they had homes across the street, a summer to come, and time in the sun.

Saturday, Macey and her parents toured garden centers. It was always this way: in early May, Mom and Dad were sure this was the year they would garden, and weed, and tend, and their yard would yield armloads of dizzyingly bright flowers, and there would be pretty little paths edged by fragrant herbs.

But somehow, once they got home, everybody was too busy actually to plant anything, and the plants would line up near the garage in the sun, waiting for a shovel and a space in the earth, but the time wouldn’t come, and a few weeks later, somebody would irritably fork the silly things into a corner, and Mom would say, Next year, I think I’ll plant roses.

Macey especially loved her parents when they just foozled around and got nowhere but wouldn’t admit it.

On the drive home, Dad said, “Do we need to stop for anything?” He hated getting up Sunday morning and finding they were out of milk or coffee or orange juice.

“We’d better stop just in case,” agreed Mom.

Dad pulled up to the convenience store. “Mace, you know you want to run into the store for us.”

“Sure,” she said, because she did want to. She liked helping keep her parents’ lives together.

“I think we’re out of cereal, Macey,” said Mom. “Get Cheerios, too.”

She handed Macey a twenty, and Macey ran in, knowing the aisles well, pulling milk out of the refrigerated doors and cereal off the shelf. She got doughnuts, too. Sunday morning you needed a doughnut. She was back in moments. She hopped in, slammed the door, and showed off her loot. Everybody was happy about the doughnuts, especially Mom, who would never have bought them but would be the first to eat them.

Her parents mentioned what a good mood she was in, how happy she seemed. Macey said, “Oh, you know. Spring. Sun is shining.”