She hunched back into the couch, looking to the TV and mumbling, “You always take his side.”

“I didn’t get a new comforter, Pippa,” Auden returned.

Oh no.

“Do you want one?” I asked my son.

“No,” he answered me. “Just pointing out she’s full of it.”

Pippa looked to me. “Can you get another armchair like yours that I can sit in?”

That would crowd the space and look funny.

“No,” I told her gently.

“I cannot believe you asked Mom to buy you a chair,” Auden said precisely like he couldn’t believe it.

“That chair is awesome,” Pippa retorted, making the warmth inside me snuggle deeper, which was what their bickering was doing, as crazy as that sounded.

Auden turned his attention back to the TV, clicking the remote, answering, “It is. But it’d look stupid, crammed up here with all this other stuff. And it’s not like chairs grow on trees.”

“I didn’t say they did,” Pippa returned.

“Just be cool for once,” Auden shot back.

“Okay,” I cut in. “I love it that you love my chair, Pip. And I love it that you’re protective of my design aesthetic, Auden. But how about we make this zone,” I circled my hand to indicate the space we were occupying, “a bicker free zone for ten minutes.”

Pippa hunched back into the couch and Auden turned back to the TV, doing this grinning.

“Design aesthetic,” he muttered, clearly amused.

Back in the day, I amused my boy often.

Right then, knowing I did, I tasted a sweet so beautiful, I knew I’d buried the memory so understanding I’d lost it wouldn’t kill me.

When he did, Pippa audibly swallowed back a giggle before also muttering, “Mom’s so goofy.”

I drew in a silent breath and let it out.

Whackjob I hated.

Goofy I’d take since, to my kids, something they told me frequently, I’d always been goofy.

That also tasted sweet.

I’d missed it too.

The ten minutes actually only lasted about two before Pippa asked irritably, “Can we watch something while you schedule your bazillion programs into the DVR?”

I looked at the programming happening and wondered when my son actually intended to watch all that.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Something,” she answered.

Expertly, Auden changed the channel to something Pippa would accept then went back to programming the DVR.

But he did this asking, “That cool for you, Mom?”

In my son’s voice (or my daughter’s), “Mom” was the most beautiful word in the English language.

“Yeah, kiddo,” I replied, not even knowing what we were watching.

I didn’t care.

They were back.

My kids were back.

With me.

* * * * *

“Amy, that’s fuckin’ great,” Mickey said in my ear through the phone while I reclined on my daybed in my bedroom.