He reached across the table and took my hand, sticky from cinnamon roll icing, so that he was holding mine and Mom’s hands. “Sweet Pea, I need to tell you something. It’s something I think I’ve known for quite a long time, but I thought maybe it would go away.”

Tears began to roll down my cheeks. “Are you sick?” I turned to Mom. “Is Dad dying?”

“Oh, mercy, no,” she said, almost laughing, but not in a cheerful way.

Dad squeezed my hand and gave me a hopeless-looking smile. “I’m not sick. There’s nothing wrong with me. But Sweet Pea, I’m gay.”

I sat there for a while, the only thing finally breaking the silence was Cheese jumping on the counter to lick a spatula. Besides Mrs. Young and her wife, most of the gay people I knew of were on TV. Mom and Dad had always made sure I knew there was nothing wrong about being gay, and they’d even made a point of making me watch all the celebrations on the news when gay marriage was legalized. Mom said it was history being made. And I think one of Dad’s cousins is gay. But other than that and the possibility of Oscar being gay, I hadn’t thought about it very much.

In the end, though, Dad being gay was the kind of information I filed away in my brain to deal with some other time, because the real, looming issue I couldn’t stop thinking about was the fact that my family was suddenly falling apart.

“Why can’t you just stay with us?” I found myself asking. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal.” I knew they couldn’t stay together. I knew it even then, but I had to ask.

Dad cleared his throat like that might somehow stop the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“We wish things could be the same, Sweet Pea,” Mom said, her voice cracking on my name. “And we’ll do our best to make sure things stay as close to the same for you as possible. We promise you. Right, Andre?”

Dad nodded firmly. “As little change as possible.”

“Then why can’t you just stay?” I asked again, but this time it came out more like a wail.

“I wish it could be that simple,” Dad said with a sigh. “But that’s not really fair to your mom. Or me.”

“We still love each other very much,” Mom said, her tears finally spilling over. “We’ll always be best friends, but more than that, we’ll always be your parents. Just as we always have been.”

And maybe that’s when it all started—this idea of two nearly identical houses and their promise to keep things as normal as possible. Mom and Dad talked for a while, and some of it I heard while some of it just felt like a ringing noise in my ears. Sometimes when I remember it all, I still feel the sting like it’s a fresh wound.

It’s easiest to forget they’re even divorced at all in the morning, like now, when I’m still curled up in bed and half-asleep. But then, like sunlight burning against my eyelids, I remember that no matter how hard Mom and Dad try, things will never be the same. I let out a long yawn and cling to Mom’s side like a koala as a last-ditch effort to keep her in bed.