“And, not to mention the dog,” Phoebe adds, “who is clearly the glue that keeps this whole family together.”

We all clink glasses and smile and wipe our eyes and pet Charlotte, who is running around, wagging her tail and whoring for attention, checking in with each of us with paws and barks. I feel like such an asshole. Here I was, as always, untrusting and suspicious, ready to suspect two young puppets of something creepy and criminal, when all they wanted to do was connect with us.

I pick up the dog and pet her as she settles onto my lap. “Well, we’ll all be there with bells on.”

“Even Glennie?” Teddy asks, his face wide open with hope.

I swallow hard and force a smile. “I’m not sure she’s up to it right now.”

“But Charlotte’s coming, right?” Phoebe asks.

“Charlotte is definitely coming,” I say. Teddy rolls his eyes but lets Charlotte lick his fingers when he reaches out to pet her.

Nick and Phoebe beam. “Excellent!”

* * *

Later that night, after Teddy goes up to his room to make Glenn a get-well card and the People Puppets are back in the basement, Gary and I finish the dishes, scraping and rinsing and loading plates and glasses and silverware onto the racks of the dishwasher. Usually I rearrange the plates to line up evenly on the left side—straightening them from how Gary throws them in there, seemingly without any rhyme or reason, but tonight I don’t. Why bother controlling something so meaningless when everything else seems to be spinning out into the universe?

“Well, that was fun,” Gary says as I shut the faucet off and bury my hands inside a dish towel. “But I’m sad. I feel like the People Puppets just got here and now they’re leaving. Time really flies.”

I keep my nervous hands hidden inside the towel.

“Do you think we’ll actually see them after they leave or was that all just bullshit?”

I shrug. “It’s probably bullshit, but I wish it weren’t.”

“You do?”

I shrug again. “Sure I do. I miss having a family.”

He stares at me. “But you have a family, Judy. Teddy and me. We’re your family.”

“I know, but—”

“Okay, Judy. What’s going on?”

I shrug. “What do you mean?”

“You’re upset, so you might as well tell me what’s wrong so we can go to sleep. We do have to sleep in the same room tonight, but don’t worry,” he says more sharply now, “you’ll have the place to yourself soon enough. Just a few more nights of pretending to be married and things will go back to normal. Whatever that means.”

I want to tell him about the reservoir—how the mob came after me and the dog, how humiliating it was to be publicly shamed for wearing her, to have something so innocent called so into question with such a malevolent take—but then I’d have to tell him about seeing him there. Seeing him there with the woman he was with, the woman who is probably his girlfriend. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to hear about how he might be in love, how we’re going to have to figure out a way for him to move out and move in with her.