“What difference does it make, Dad?” his mother said in that same flat voice. “It’s probably only a matter of time before I have to get rid of all eight of them.”

Nate wanted to ask what she meant, but he just chewed his food. Junie burped.

“Say excuse me, Junie,” their grandmother told her.

“Excuse me, Junie,” his sister said.

Grandma and Poppa had brought a box of chocolates for his mother—her favorite brand, in a gold box. Junie asked if she could have the box when the chocolates were finished.

Everyone picked out a piece, making a neat pile of the colored foil wrappers in the center of the table. “One thing that ends the day right is a good piece of chocolate,” Grandma said.

Mom set to washing the dishes. Nate and his grandmother dried. As the group of them stood around the kitchen, a thought came to Nate: It was as if his father never existed.

After the dishes were done and his grandparents had left, Nate settled himself by the encyclopedias. He wasn’t in the mood, but he figured if he flipped through a volume or two, maybe an idea would come to him for his science project. From the kitchen, he could hear his mom and Junie working on the invitations. March 24. A month away. He wondered if his father would be home by then.

Out in the kitchen his sister’s voice had lowered to a confidential whisper. “I want to invite this boy named Jonathan,” she was saying. “But there’s a problem.”

“What’s that?” her mother asked.

“He’s in love with me,” she said. “And I like him too, but just as a friend.”

“Maybe you should just be honest with Jonathan, honey. Let him know where you stand.”

“You should talk,” Nate muttered.

Nate remembered a day, a long time ago, when things were going well on the farm. He’d just come in from building a fort with Larry and found his parents sitting next to the woodstove together. His mother’s hair was wet, hanging down the way he almost never saw it, and his father was brushing the long red curls. Nate remembered his mother blushing—jumping up from where she’d been sitting on his dad’s lap.

“What’s to be embarrassed about, Helen?” Dad had said to her. “You think our son shouldn’t know his parents are crazy about each other?”

“Well, that’s for sure,” she’d said, and kissed him.