“I didn’t know you went to law school,” Teddy says. I watch as something—surprise? confusion? disappointment?—crosses his face. “Jackson’s dad is a lawyer.” It’s the first time I realize that Teddy is deep in the age of comparison—seeing himself and his family in relation to others, though what he thinks about those differences I have no idea, except that I’m sure I come up short compared to other moms who don’t wear the family dog.

“I thought I’d told you,” Gary says absently. He’s a terrible liar. “Sometimes you just know that something isn’t for you and law school wasn’t for me. I couldn’t take the pressure. I was practically hospitalized after the first year.” He laughs to make it sound like a joke, even though it’s fairly close to the truth. After dropping out, years before we met, he’d spent the summer living with his mother in his old bedroom in New Hampshire, the one with a twin bed and airplane wallpaper, and decided to go back to music, his true passion. If not for his anxiety, which got more and more debilitating, he would have had an amazing career, I’m sure of it.

“And a year after that he opened for Aerosmith!” I say super enthusiastically, citing his résumé highlights from memory, since aside from a few grainy old videos, pre-iPhone quality, I’ve never seen Gary perform live in a big venue. Except for small bars and coffeehouses, he’d stopped playing with his band before we met, and I’ve always wished I had known that version of him.

“Our band did,” Gary corrects.

“Dude! Impressive!” Nick says.

“It was a long time ago,” Gary says, changing the subject. Reminiscing always makes him uncomfortable—how does he explain to people what happened to his promising future, how does he square the present with the past, when he barely understands it himself? “I’m in snacks now. Ordering, stocking, and restocking beverages and crunchy, chewy, salty, and sweet nut and protein bars. It’s a low-pressure job. Relatively. Unless you run out of Kind bars right before the four o’clock rush.” He pauses, then lowers his voice to an intense whisper. “But I do miss playing sometimes. I went to hear a band last week and I was like, man, I want to do that again someday.”

“Last week?” I’m confused. “Before or after couples therapy?”

There’s an awkward silence.

“You guys go to couples therapy?” Teddy asks, inching into the living room.

Gary sighs. “Thanks, Judy.”

I turn to Teddy. “We just go once in a while. For maintenance. Like going to the gym.”

Teddy’s eyes narrow. “You guys fight all the time, so I don’t think it’s working.”

Everybody laughs, and Teddy’s face relaxes, brightens. Even adolescents love the power of cracking people up.

“We do not!” Gary says.

“You’re scaring the People Puppets, Teddy! Now they’re not going to want to stay here!” I turn to Nick and Phoebe. “We absolutely do not fight all the time, I swear! Plus we have a great dog!”