Pulling her heavy hair into a bun, off of her neck, Dani walked down her stairs and heard Jillian’s voice say, “I always thought it was you that kept Zed’s den all neat and compulsively tidy!”

“Oh, no, honey, ever since he was a cub, Zed has had a sort of obsessive compulsive need to organize everything. I never had to clean his room when he was little. He kept all of his toys lined up in perfect little lines.”

“Zed?” Jillian asked.

“Have you ever seen his DVD collection? He has this massive selection of action movies and they’re all categorized by genre and alphabetized by the last name of the lead actor. His Gerard Butler section is shameful.” Clarissa clucked her tongue.

“For more reasons than one,” Jillian muttered.

Dani paused at her kitchen door, taking in the sight of her boss and her . . . booty call’s mother drinking tea at her table. “Are you like gremlins? I feed one of you and you multiply?”

Jillian flushed guiltily. “I just wanted to check on you. I know it’s been a couple of days since you’ve been out to the rift and I wanted to make sure you still want to fulfill your contract. I would understand if you didn’t…”

“No, no,” said Dani. “I’m still on the job. I just needed to get everything recalibrated in my head. Otherwise it would be dangerous for me to work on the rift.”

“Thank goodness,” said Jillian. “I didn’t want you to leave! You laugh at my jokes.”

“Really? That’s my qualifier?”

Jillian shrugged. Dani lifted the lid from the pot, pausing for a moment to enjoy the perfume of nearly liquefied apples. She suddenly wanted to call Trudy very badly. Since Lottie didn’t have a potato masher, Dani took a heavy wooden spoon and stirred it with all of her might. The braised fruit broke down into a smooth spicy sauce.

“And I’d like to point out, you haven’t fed me yet,” said Clarissa.

“You know, gremlins get a bad rap,” said Jillian. “They’re actually pretty benevolent. Most of the time when people see them, they’re trying to help fix the mechanical problem that’s taking down the plane or train or whatever.”

Dani pursed her lips. “Again, it’s weird that you know that.”

Jillian nodded primly. “I accept your premise.”

Clarissa sighed as Dani dished up two piping hot bowls of applesauce. “This is very nice for me. I mean, I enjoy my time with my boys, but there’s something to be said for the company of ladies.”

“There’s probably significantly less belching,” Jillian said.

“It reminds me of nights in the kitchen with my grandmother and my aunt, when I was growing up,” said Dani. “Grandad would fall asleep in his recliner while we were washing dishes and we would sit in the kitchen eating dessert and talking.”