The car in front of me stopped suddenly, and I locked up the Rabbit’s brakes. The Rabbit was a relic from my teenage years (long past) that I kept running because I loved it—and because I was a mechanic, and keeping an old, cheap car like the Rabbit running was the best form of advertisement. The brakes worked just fine, and she stopped with room to spare—about four inches of room.

“I’m not the first person to misuse Macbeth,” Jesse said, sounding a bit breathless—but then, she didn’t know I’d just redone the brakes last week when I had some time.

I blew out air between my teeth to make a chiding sound as we waited for some cowardly driver a few cars ahead to take the left turn onto the interstate. “The Scottish Play. It’s ‘the Scottish Play.’ You should know better. There are some things you never name out loud, like Macbeth, the IRS, and Voldemort. Not if you want to make it to the mall tonight.”

“Oh,” she said, smirking at me. “I only think about that when I’m looking into a mirror and not saying ‘Candyman’ or ‘Bloody Mary.’”

“Does your father know what kind of movies you watch?” I asked.

“My father bought me Psycho for my thirteenth birthday. I notice you didn’t ask me who the Candyman was. What kind of movies are you watching, Mercy?” Her voice was a little smug, so I stuck my tongue out at her. I’m a mature stepmom like that.

Traffic near the Kennewick Mall actually wasn’t too bad. All the lanes were bumper-to-bumper, but the speed was pretty normal. I knew from experience that once the silly season got fully under way, a snail would make better time than a car anywhere near the mall.

“Mercy?” Jesse asked.

“Uhm?” I answered, swerving into the next lane over to avoid being hit by a minivan.

“When are you and Dad going to have a baby?”

Chills broke out all over my body. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move—and I hit the SUV in front of me at about thirty miles an hour. I’m pretty sure that the Scottish Play had nothing to do with it.

“It’s my fault,” Jesse said, sitting beside me on the sidewalk next to the mall parking lot shortly thereafter. The flashing lights of various emergency vehicles did interesting things to her canary yellow and orange hair. She was bumping her feet up and down with excess nervous energy—or maybe just to keep warm. It was, at best, thirty degrees, and the wind was cutting.