There was a thing last year, on the news, about some woman figuring out how to take a picture of a black hole. Quinn wasn’t sure what the big deal was about taking a picture, but Maddie had convinced her teacher to print a copy of it on one of their special printers so Maddie could bring it home and hang it on the fridge. Quinn stares at it sometimes, making dinner, making coffee, stands barefoot looking at it after Maddie is in bed. It looks like the ocean, but what the ocean might look like were it made of shiny black. Maddie talks about being an astrophysicist, as well as a veterinarian, as well as a professional horse rider, as well as an engineer who builds solar-powered cars.

What Quinn had wanted to be, when she was younger—and this is proof like all the other proof that Maddie is an improvement on herself—was an actuary. The father of her best friend in middle school was an actuary. Quinn was good with numbers, and he talked to her about it, commented on her sharpness and her quickness when they talked percentages and fractions, said she had a real mind for the type of work he did. He got home before her friend’s mom, who was a high-up administrator at the local hospital and worked long hours. The dad made them dinner by himself. He told Quinn to call him Mr. P. He was kind and he was steady, asked Quinn and his daughter careful, thoughtful questions. Quinn thought most about the solidity of him. She wanted the two-story house, the easy way he changed out of his suit into a T-shirt and shorts and began to cook each day at five fifteen.

“Dark,” the guy says, about Maddie’s black holes.

Quinn laughs. She thinks how fun it is, being her daughter instead.

8

Tess carries Stella up the stairs with Colin dragging behind her. “We’ll skip bath,” she says to them.

“We got sweaty,” Stella says.

“We’ll get you extra clean tomorrow.”

“I’m too tired to take off my clothes,” Colin says.

“You both have to use the bathroom.”

“I can’t move.”

“Colin,” Tess says. He still wets the bed sometimes, but if she reminds him of this he’ll get angry and embarrassed. “Please,” she says. “Do what I ask.”