“Oh, here they are!” My mom opens a creased envelope and dumps the pictures on the couch cushion. First grade: missing front teeth; second grade: pigtails; third grade: Mickey Mouse T-shirt. She laughs and holds up my fourth-grade picture. I’m scowling and my face is pale, my nose red. “You were so sick that day. I should never have let you go to school.”

“I remember,” I say. “I didn’t want to miss picture day.”

“You never like to change plans, do you, Mattie-mouse?”

I nod as she fits the school pictures into the pages of my book. Everywhere I look are changes. The living room is a mix of old and new, past and present. It has our sofa—but also Bob’s zigzag rug and ugly painting of a moose. Lucas’s red ball is on our striped chair and Kenny’s chess set is on Bob’s coffee table. It’s like I’m stuck in this weird place that is kind of like home but isn’t at all familiar.

When my mom first started dating Bob, I really didn’t think it would last. After all, our life was in Minnesota and his was in California. Separate. But then Bob and his kids came for Thanksgiving last year and then we went to Santa Cruz for winter break. It started to feel real, even though we all still felt like strangers. When Bob gave her a sparkly diamond ring, I thought maybe the Jaspers would move to Minnesota. All that changed when my mom got laid off from the marketing job she hated, and the lease ended on our house, and she decided she wanted a change.

“We can have a fresh start in California, Mattie-mouse.”

I nodded, but I didn’t want a fresh start. What twelve-year-old needs a fresh start?

“And no more winters!” she tried, but I love snow.

“Bob has orange trees in the backyard!” she said, as if this were a selling point.

But seeing the way my mom looks at this goofy, tall, bearded man and the way he looks at her makes me wonder. Oranges and no snowy winters will never make up for leaving my friends, my life, my home, but seeing my mom happy might.

“This is going on the last page.” My mom holds out a photo of the two of us. I’m in two tight braids and the yellow sundress she picked out for me, and she’s in her white linen wedding dress. I remember going to the tailor with her to get it shortened. Before the wedding and the move to California, it felt like all we did was errands. We took lots of trips to the donation center, where we got rid of a dresser, two armchairs, our old red dishes, and our blackened pots and pans.