“Jinny,” Wilma said, taking her place at the end of the table opposite from her husband, “you’ll serve the dinner, please.” For nearly twenty years now, at every meal, Wilma had sat with her back to the window, while John sat with his back to the fireplace; the children filled in like pegs around the table that glimmered with gold-rimmed china and goblets and golden flatware—Jack and Chase on Wilma’s left, Harry and Jinny to her right, nearest the kitchen. Today, Wilma’s view of John was partly obscured by a large arrangement of Easter flowers; more flowers bedecked the mantel behind him. Today, Wilma could feel her family crumbling into dust.

Jinny, who was eleven (“and a half,” she would add), shook her bright blond head. “Mom, that’s applesauce. Where’s Brita? Or Cook? Or Thora?”

Her brothers laughed, and her father tried to look stern but didn’t succeed. Wilma had talked to them all repeatedly about not encouraging Jinny’s impish behavior, but to no avail.

“First of all, young lady, I am quite certain that dinner is more than applesauce,” Wilma said. “I discharged Brita, and Cook and Thora have gone home early today.”

“Aw, Mom! Not Brita!” said Harry. His blond hair was standing on end, as usual. Wilma had wrestled with that hair for years, and now that she had given its care over to its owner, he had little more success with it, despite frequent liberal applications of his older brothers’ pomades.

Jack and Chase laughed, but they looked disappointed, too; Wilma was glad she had made the decision. She didn’t know what she had been thinking, to hire someone so pretty in the first place, with all these boys in the house.

“Wilma,” her husband said. “I wish you would discuss these matters with me before acting so quickly.”

“What about discussing them with me?” Harry grumbled.

“That’s the third one you’ve discharged this year, and we’re barely into April,” John continued.

“Poor Hare,” Jack joshed his brother.

Harry’s eyes flashed up. “Hey, I think she was starting to like me.”

“When pigs fly!” Jinny said.

Harry reached over to thwack her with his middle finger.

“Children!” Wilma said. There was silence, and she took a deep breath. “Now, we’ll say grace, and then Jinny will serve dinner. We have to go to church at seven o’clock.”

Wilma looked at Chase, then bowed her head. She tried to listen while John said the prayer, but when he said something about a just war and a swift victory, she could listen no more.

The instant he was through, Harry’s voice broke in. “Our victory would be swifter if I could go, too,” he said. “Can I, Mom?”

Wilma held her breath.

“If I pretended I was sixteen, you could sign a paper for me, couldn’t you? I could pass for sixteen.”

“Like nothing,” Jinny said.