I wondered if Tim had packed the lunch, or if Carson had done it himself. I peeked inside the backpack and saw a leaking water bottle, a bag of mini muffins, and Doritos. I still wasn’t sure who had assembled it.

I walked into the family room, where Luke was happily tucked in next to Emily, Goldfish crumbs encircling them.

“Hey, Luke. How’s everything? How’s your mom doing?”

He didn’t look at me, transfixed by the bright orange snack.

I didn’t want to press the issue and possibly further traumatize the kids, so I decided to wait until later to try to gather any intel in a more subtle way.

“Are you hungry?” My words fell upon deaf ears as they remained focused on the iPad screen. I looked at my phone, to make sure Liz hadn’t texted. Nothing. Normally she would have sent them with a full meal and a backpack full of crafting activities that she had found on Pinterest.

I felt a longing in my chest for my friend. Before all this happened, I had never stopped to think about Liz before. She was someone whom I didn’t think about, who was always in the background. She was the constant, the one we all took for granted. The one who quietly folded the blankets at the end of the night and took out the recycling. The friend who texted the day after a party to ask if I needed help cleaning up and to say that she’d had a great time. She required almost nothing, and with a pang of regret, I realized we never gave her more than that.

The least I could do now was help her kids. I peeked my head in the room, and all the kids were still sitting quietly. As I walked upstairs to my bedside desk, I heard Jack say, “Did you know my nana is doing the face painting for the carnival?”

I sighed as I sat down on the edge of my bed, staring at the event binder. I needed at least ten more people to help out, and I was running out of options. As it was, I had my friends and their husbands, my mother-in-law, and Marianne Baker, who was making goodies for the cakewalk.

An idea popped into my head. Marianne and my mother-in-law had readily volunteered to help. The older ladies in the neighborhood were always so kind and helpful; I wondered if I could ask some of them to assist. Their grown children had attended the elementary school, and they were the ones who had started the carnival tradition. They might be willing to help out, even if only out of a sense of nostalgia.