“She made us . . . she took all . . . the pictures of our mom and put them away. Now I can’t even see a picture of my mom without asking her first.”

Then he began to wail. My heart sank. I thought, Oh my God, that’s the meanest thing I’ve ever heard of! But in the next minute, I could sort of see Sharon’s point. Only sort of. She was Archie’s new wife, and no matter who he married, that woman wouldn’t be happy to see pictures of the deceased wife who had been canonized by the entire population who knew her. Still, it was no way to start things off. I thought for another minute and hoped I had a solution.

“Hold on there, sweet pea, I think I have a way to work this out. Where’s your daddy?” I pulled a tissue from my bag and gave it to him. “Blow.”

He blew his nose and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his pajamas.

“Upstairs in the bedroom with her. They locked the door.”

Well, I knew what that meant, but I quickly changed the subject. But all Tyler knew was that today, and maybe for a long time, he wasn’t welcome in their bedroom. There would be no more morning snuggles or tickle fests or pillow fights.

“Did you and your brother have breakfast?”

“We just had some leftover cake.”

“Okay, where’s Hunter?”

“Watching cartoons,” he said.

“Well, why don’t we see if we can’t rustle up some grub for you two cowboys? Silver dollar pancakes?”

“Yeah!” he said with a big smile.

“Okay! Now! That’s the face I like to see! Go get your brother and meet me in the kitchen.”

When I got to the kitchen my heart sank again. The cake they had demolished was the top layer of Archie and Sharon’s wedding cake, traditionally saved for the happy couple’s first anniversary. It had been carefully packed by the caterer. The boys had literally destroyed the box and eaten most of it. I decided to close the box and hide it in the back of the freezer. Sharon was not going to like that at all. If she found out. Which she wouldn’t until a year from now. Better yet, I was going to throw it out as soon as they left.

I started making batter for pancakes and took out Archie’s largest skillet. The boys came wandering into the room.

“So, listen up, buckaroos, is there any cake in any other part of the house? Even a crumb?”

“Maybe,” Hunter said sheepishly. “There might be some on the floor in front of the television.”

I glanced at the kitchen clock that hung on the wall over the back door. It was after nine. Archie and Sharon would be downstairs soon. I wet a paper towel, squeezed out the water, and wiped the icing from Hunter’s mouth.