“You’re not the only one who’s been caught up,” said Ros, a little abashed. “I haven’t been very good to Touchstone, either. Or you.”

There was silence for a moment. It was the first time either one of us had broached the gap that had widened between us since the failed Fourth of July hang, which had precipitated the Ros-shaped absence in my life.

“The houseplants are definitely struggling without you,” I said.

“Celia, I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” said Ros.

“That’s okay,” I said.

“It’s not,” said Ros. “I never thought I would be the sort of person who ditches their friends. We’re not those people. We’re not those friends. You know what I mean?”

I agreed, except for the fact that we seemed to be gathering all evidence to the contrary.

We very much were those friends, and the longer we spent apart, the more I felt the Triumvirate splintering.

“Before we left, my mom warned me about this,” I said.

“About us being bad friends?”

“Just that things might get hard between us. That being here was going to be different than being at home.”

“I’m sorry,” Ros said again. “I know I’ve been spending all my time with Jess.”

“No,” I said. “It’s okay. I mean, I’m glad you’re having fun.”

“It’s more than fun,” said Ros. “She told me she loved me.”

“Wow,” I managed to say, in spite of the fact that I’d just been struck dead by a lightning bolt. “And did you… say it back?”

Ros nodded.

Well, that was the ball game.

Ros was in love, exotic, all-consuming, fern-spore love, and I was just me, Celia, sewing buttons on trousers and living my dinky little life.

“That’s fast,” I said.

“It is fast, but Jess is really great, Celia. She’s got some rough edges, but so do I. She went through a really hard time a few years ago. Her dad died. Her mom drives trucks for a living just to make ends meet and is hardly ever home. Jess basically raised herself. She has a brother who is kind of an asshole. That’s pretty much why she learned to fight.”

“Like, to fight him?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus.”

“I know.”

We sat together in silence and let this sink in: In some homes, you learned how to throw punches; in others, you learned the Greek alphabet for fun and that nothing tasted as good as a bowl of ice cream after dinner. Not for the first time, I felt so lucky to have been born into my family.

“You’d really like Jess if you got to know her.”

The if you got to know her hung there between us. Suddenly everything that Ros and I weren’t talking about seemed to find its way into the room. I owed them an apology as much as I owed Touchstone.