“I like to see you, too,” I say.

“So what do you want to do tonight? It’s Friday night, your choice.”

“I want to go to a movie.”

And she gives me a hug. “Me, too. It’s a date.”

There’s an AMC cinema on 84th Street, just a few blocks from our apartment. “Let’s put the week behind us,” she says. She lets me choose the movie, so I pick Ant-Man, which is what Jake and Zach and Addie are going to see. Even though it’s PG-13, and I won’t turn thirteen until next year. I look around for them at the theater, but I can’t see them, and Mom says they wouldn’t be allowed in anyway without an adult.

“I bet they could get in,” I say. “Jake looks like a teenager.”

“It’s got nothing to do with what you look like. They need to check ID. It’s the law. Kids say they’re going to do a lot of things; it doesn’t mean they always do them.” But then she says, “I don’t want to fight with you about it. You’ll all be teenagers soon enough.”

I don’t think she likes the movie much. “It’s more your kind of thing,” she says to me afterward. It was sunny when we went inside, but it’s dark when we come out—the whole world seems a little different.

Even though it’s almost ten o’clock, there are still people walking around and sitting outside at some of the restaurants that put tables on the sidewalk. It’s pretty warm, even at night. Since I don’t have to go to school in the morning, Mom lets me stay out late.

Mom tries to take my hand as we walk home. She hasn’t done that in a while. I’m really too old to hold her hand, and I don’t want anyone to see us—I mean, anyone from school—so I let go. The traffic on Broadway keeps starting and stopping. I always like to count the yellow cabs. In math we’re studying ratios and percentages, and I try to work out the ratio of cabs to total cars at every stoplight. Three cabs, five ordinary cars makes three over eight.

“You know that your father is away on business,” she says.

“Yeah, I know. He’s in London.”

We wait at a cross street for the light to change. Mom keeps talking.

“Right. So, his company has an office there. And they . . . they want him to move out there permanently—he called me last night, which is probably why I’ve been a little crabby. They want him to take it over.”

“Does that mean we’re moving to London?” I ask.

She pauses before saying, “Do you want to move to London?” Sometimes she does a thing with her voice, where it sounds like she’s excited but she really isn’t. So I’m trying to think what I’m supposed to say. What does Mom want to hear, and what would Dad want me to say if he were here, too?