The teakettle whistles. Zeke loves me! I feel like we should kiss or something, but instead I fuss with the water and the tea bags. We sit on the couch.

Zeke pauses. “Kimberly, could you tell me more about your relationship with Senator Sloan?”

That stilted voice again. Is he working from a script?

“It’s a little hard to talk about that.” There’s so much I want to tell him, and so much I’m scared to say out loud.

Zeke puts down his tea and takes mine, too. He holds my hands tightly. “You can talk to me about anything.”

I stare at our hands. “I know.”

“It seems like … maybe there’s some history there?” he says. “Did he hurt you somehow?”

I can’t look at Zeke. “He was nice to me in a time when a lot of people weren’t. He made me believe…” I let my voice trail off. “I owe him a lot, I guess.”

“I don’t want to work for someone bad.”

Oh. He was listening. He believed me.

“It’s complicated,” I admit. “The things he’s famous for, I mean, he did those things. He makes a difference.”

Zeke takes my hands. “Then what is it?” He’s gentle. “I know you. You don’t lash out at people for no reason.”

“I—” I lower my head. “The truth is, I’m mad at him because he’s taking you away.” It is a deep truth and a huge lie all at once. It shatters the scale.

“Kimberly—”

“We just got started. I don’t want to lose you.” My voice gets all clogged and annoying.

Zeke frowns. “Nothing happens immediately. It’s not until the summer. Not until I graduate. The job would start after that. That’s a lot of time to figure out what we want to do.”

We. The tiniest glimmer of hope flares, then fades. The reality of what is to come is too big, too heavy.

“In other words,” Zeke says, leaning toward me. “I have four months to convince you that you should come with me.”

EVA

In the end, it is just Mommy and me who get to enjoy the amenities. Daddy has to pass a test with a doctor so that he can go back to work.

Mommy lounges in a stretchy rubber chair while I splash in the big swimming pool until all of me is a prune. We eat fancy food that I don’t know how to say the names of. Some of it is yum. Some of it is yuck. (Snails? Ewww.)

“We should call Daddy on the phone,” I say.

“No, I don’t think we should,” Mommy answers.

JENNICA

Kimberly is leaving. She says she hasn’t decided, but I know her. Maybe better than she knows herself.

We snuggle in my bed, for the first time in weeks, while she tells me all about it. Her body is warm against my back and she has her arms around me. It’s perfect. It’s lovely. I could forget all of it, I could pretend that this is how it will be forever. But she won’t stop talking.