Even in the grip of righteous disdain, Rorie softened toward her little brother. “Of course Declan loves you,” she acknowledged. “Everyone loves you, Nugget.” She paused, adding, “And you’re Mom’s favorite too.”

“I don’t have favorites.”

Rorie whirled in her seat. “You can’t say that with a straight face. There’s no contest. If there’s an order to who you care about, it goes like this: Beau, your job, me.” One eyebrow drifted up, a quirk that never failed to remind me of her father. “And actually, I’d add Declan in there too, only in his case, you don’t care about him enough.”

“That’s not true,” I said, stung. “You and Beau are the most important things in the world to me. More than work, and, yes, certainly more than any guy.”

“Fine.” Rorie’s eyes shifted upward, as if insight would materialize from the heavens if she looked hard enough. “Maybe I rank above work. But I’ll never compete with Beau.” Her eyes snapped back to me. “You’ve loved him most from the moment he was born.”

Beau quivered in dismay. It took everything I had not to reach for him, but I kept my gaze on Rorie. Underneath her defiance, I could see an edge of something else, the faintest shadow of fear, maybe, or bewilderment. I didn’t know whether to keep issuing the same denial—I’d already said I loved them equally—or try something else. Before I could commit to a course of action, Beau bent double in his seat, literally felled by grief at the notion that he might be favored over someone else. “Don’t say that, Rorie, please,” he said in a tiny voice, his face smashed down on his knees. “Don’t say that.”

“Oh, Beau-Beau,” Rorie said, reaching across me. She made a crooning noise as she rubbed his little back. “It’s okay. I’m sorry.”

“Mommy loves you, Roar,” he said, almost inaudibly.

“I know she does. I’m really sorry.”

“I don’t want to be the favorite. It would make you sad.”

“It would,” she agreed, leveling an intense look at me above his shoulder, “but you’re not the favorite. I was being an ass.”

“Rorie,” I said helplessly. Rorie’s eyelids fluttered and suddenly her teenaged saltiness fell away, revealing the unfeigned sweetness of the little girl underneath. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she mouthed.

Now, looking back, I wish I could re-create that moment and suspend it, leaving me free to pull them both onto my lap, to wrap my arms around their bodies and breathe in the scents of their skin and contain them at these ages, while they were still innocent of what was to come. And me: I was innocent as well, unaware not only of the wave poised to break over the world but also of the manner in which our collective trauma would coalesce for me into an unthinkable choice between my children. It wouldn’t happen until the last days of the pandemic, many months away. But it was coming, my future outlined already by a series of immutable events. If I’d known that then, I’d have tried harder to reassure Rorie of how much I loved her.