Then Dad took a sniff, and I knew exactly what it was. Wine. He’d always done that, stuck his nose in his wineglass and inhaled before taking a sip. Mom teased him about it. She thought it was pretentious. But I hadn’t heard the sound in a long time. I couldn’t remember the last time my parents had just sat with a bottle of wine, together, and no TV.

“I don’t know, Paul,” said Mom. “He looked utterly convinced. I told him to see a vet. And then stop bagging groceries and start his own web channel, for bizarre animal deformities.”

Dad laughed. “You’re so gullible, Rach.”

“Yeah, well, life’s more fun that way.”

Then there was a long pause in the conversation. So I knocked lightly on the door. One, two, three knocks, before I stepped into the room, and did that thing where I rubbed my eyes, so it looked like I was just waking up from having fallen asleep. I didn’t want them to know I’d been listening. They were sitting together at the kitchen table, but not across from each other. Beside each other. Close. Her head was on his shoulder.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re up . . .”

“Hey!” they called out in unison, smiling. It didn’t feel totally natural, the moment. It didn’t feel totally right. But they both looked glad to see me.

So I smiled too. And when I opened my mouth, what came out was “Mom, I just wanted to . . . thank you.”

Mom put her glass down. “For what?”

“For being so nice to Jasper today,” I said.

“Oh, honey, of course!”

“I haven’t had a new friend in a long time. I don’t know if you know this, but Tess and I aren’t . . . the same. As before. Did you know she went to camp, my camp?”

My mom’s eyes looked tender as she nodded. “I did know, honey. I probably should have talked to you about it. It was a strange decision, I thought. I told Bev so. We spoke about it after you ran into her a few weeks ago. She was concerned for you. But I wasn’t sure what to say to you, so I didn’t say anything.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m okay. But mostly I’m okay because of Jasper. And I guess I was nervous about her meeting you, but she had a lot of fun with you today. It made me feel really . . .”

Mom nodded.

Dad didn’t move.

For some reason, it took me a moment to finish the sentence. “Happy.”

Mom blinked a bunch of times, like she had something in her eye. “Well, it made me happy too, Leah. I really liked Jasper. She seems genuinely lovely.”

“She is!” I said. “I’ve never had a friend like her. She’s special.”