“And she did all this really beautiful art and helped my mom with her art,” Wendy went on. “I don’t want to know if she did bad things. My mom liked her. How could my mom like her if she thought Marissa was having an affair with my dad?”

“I don’t know,” Anne said. “It doesn’t seem like they could have been friends if that was the case.”

It seemed so strange and wrong to be talking about affairs with an eleven-year-old, but Wendy clearly knew what she was talking about—at least to a point. Anne wanted her to feel like she could bring up any subject at all when they talked. If they talked about affairs when she was eleven, what would twelve bring?

“People make life so complicated,” Wendy said on a wistful sigh.

They sat quietly for a moment, Wendy toying with the half-dozen cheap silver bracelets she wore on one arm.

She looked up at Anne again. “Can I sleep over? Please? I don’t want to go home. You and Vince are cool. I could sleep with Haley.”

“What about your mom?” Anne asked. “She’s feeling pretty down right now. Don’t you think you should stay home with her and keep her company? She’s hurting too, and I’m sure she’s feeling very alone.”

Wendy frowned and pulled at a loose thread on her purple leg warmers. “I know.”

Anne put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. She remembered all too well being the one who comforted her own mother when her father was so rotten to her. It had been Anne her mother leaned on in the face of Dick Navarre’s incessant infidelities. Anne remembered thinking how unfair it was that she had to be the adult when she was really just a kid. She had blamed her father mightily. She still did.

She made a mental note to call and check on him just the same—because that was what her mother would have wanted her to do. Dick was never happy whether she called or didn’t call. Finding fault was his specialty. Thank God he had Ling, his nurse, to spar with now.

“Maybe we can try to talk your mom into coming and staying here for a few days,” Anne said.

Wendy brightened at the idea. Thank God there were moments when she still seemed like the child she deserved to be instead of the small adult her world was forcing her to be.

“That would be awesome!” she said. “It would be like we were having a big slumber party—except for Vince.”

“Vince would deal with it.”

Haley stirred on her end of the couch. Anne reached over and pulled her blanket up around her shoulders.

“Are you going to get to keep Haley?” Wendy asked.

“I don’t know.”