Dad builds things, so he has to be precise too, but in a really different way. When he’s building something, he’s all about measuring, and remeasuring, and cutting things accurately so everything fits together.But when he isn’t building something he isn’t too precise, which drives Mom crazy.

Once he went to pick me up at dance class… only I wasn’t at dance class, I was waiting for him to pick me up at the library. He also once dropped off Molly for a playdate at the wrong house.

He’s always messing up the laundry, too. Just last week Jenna was struggling and trying to get into a pair of jeans until she realized that they were mine; Dad had put them away in her closet instead.

“I have it together!” said Dad, a little indignantly.

“Okay,” said Molly. “So you know you have to take me to soccer, right?”

“What?” said Dad, looking panicked.

“Practice starts at six,” said Molly. “It’s on the board!”

Dad went over to the bulletin board. “Oh… yeah, there it is.”

Just then our phones lit up with a text message from Mom.

All good? Everyone home?

“It’s like she senses when we need her,” said Molly, laughing.

“She probably just wants to check in to see how school was,” said Dad.

He texted back,

All OK.

Molly added,

Dad forgot soccer.

About two seconds later, Mom called Dad’s phone.

He picked up immediately and reassured her that everything was fine and that he would be home in time to get Molly to soccer, and that he would take me with him if she wasn’t home from work yet. He then left the house to finish his work, and the house was nice and quiet.

Not that my older sister Jenna or Dad or Mom are loud people, but you notice when they are around. I can always hear Mom puttering around the house, or Jenna playing music. Sometimes I even hear Molly practicing with her soccer ball against a wall somewhere, stopping only when Mom or Dad yells, “Molly, cut it out!”

I wondered if our house would still be like this once Jenna left for college, when it would just be the four of us. It seems so weird that she wouldn’t be here every day. The thing about having two sisters is that you get really used to having them around.

“Do you ever wonder what it will be like when Jenna moves out?” I asked Molly, who was sitting right next to me at the counter.

She looked up from her phone. “What?” she asked.

“When Jenna goes to college,” I said. “When it’s just the four of us instead of five, do you worry that it will be weird?”

Molly wrinkled her forehead. “I dunno,” she said. “Like will we miss her?”