“Put that toothpaste back where you found it. With the cap on," Jane warned as she hastily dragged the bedclothes back into order. Tomorrow, when she tried out the new cleaning lady, she'd strip the bed. Maybe the woman would be able to do a neater job of putting it together than she could. Somehow the bed had never gotten into this kind of mess when she was sharing it with her husband Steve, not even when they made love. Of course, if they'd made love in such a way as to wreck the bed, he might still be in it.

Seven months now, and she still couldn't get through a day without thinking about him.

She was ready to go downstairs, but paused for a minute before starting down and listened suspiciously to the quiet. She could hear Mike's alarm buzzing faintly and banged on his door. "Rise and shine, kiddo! You've got marching band practice before school," she shouted, waited for the answering groan, then went to the next room. This door wasn't closed. It was Todd's room, and he hadn't reached the age where he wanted to shut his mother out. In fact, given half a chance, he'd have just camped out at the foot of Jane's bed and abandoned his own room altogether. During thunderstorms this was, in fact, her ten-year-old son's modus operandi.

She gazed fondly at him for a minute. "Todd, honey, time to get up," she said, ruffling his blond hair. Willard, their big yellow dog, was sleeping between Todd and the wall. Belly up, paws the size of coffee mugs stuck straight into the air, he thumped his tail and made a pleasant dog groan in greeting.

“MOTHER!" Katie shouted from downstairs. "Yes, yes.”

As she flew through the kitchen, Jane noticed that Katie had spilled some milk on the counter (which one of the cats was obligingly licking up), left the donut box open, and hadn't put the carton of orange juice back in the refrigerator. Oh, well, the boys would just mess it up again by the time she got back, she thought as she rummaged in her purse for the car keys.

Katie was in the station wagon, waiting impatiently. The garage door was still closed. Jane got in the car, adjusted the rearview mirror and latched her seat belt, then sat back. "Someone needs to open that door. You didn't think about that, I guess, as you walked by it."

“Oh, Mother," Katie said, getting back out with a world-weary sigh. This was something they had gone through nearly every morning last school year. Somehow Jane had hoped this year would be different.

On the way to school, Katie reopened a too-familiar subject. "It's our allowance day, remember?"