“Don’t get mad at him,” Junie was calling.

In the kitchen their mother’s voice grew louder. “The police are acting like I did it, Carl. All on account of you not telling them any different. They dredged the pond yesterday, looking for your gun.”

Silence again, except for Junie, who had run to the phone and was tugging on her mother’s hand to get hold of the receiver. “Don’t, Mom,” she said. “Just don’t yell at him.”

She was pounding on her mother’s arm now. “Let me talk,” she pleaded. “I need to talk to him.” Junie flung herself against her mother, hitting her stomach. Of the two of them, the stronger one appeared to be Junie. At last, her mother handed the phone over, as if the effort required to keep on resisting was just too great.

“Daddy!” Junie wailed into the receiver. “You remembered my birthday!”

Silence. Junie gripped the phone with both hands, like reins on a bucking horse.

“Daddy? I’m here,” she yelled into the receiver. As if the problem was that she wasn’t loud enough.

They all listened, nobody speaking. From where he was seated, Nate could make out his sister’s face, with its look of longing and hopefulness and fear. She stood that way for a minute, whispering, “I love you, Dad. I miss you, Dad. You should come home now,” as if she were a spy behind enemy lines. Then nothing.

She handed her mother the receiver. “He must’ve got sad after you said all those mean things,” she said. “He wasn’t there.”

Again, silence.

“You ruined it,” Junie said finally. “I wanted to talk to Daddy. That was my birthday wish, and you spoiled it.”

“If somebody spoiled things around here,” their grandmother said in a tight voice, “I don’t believe it was your mother.”

But Junie had left. She was running upstairs. She must have flung herself on the bed, because they could hear the sound of muffled crying and then the familiar opening bars of “Surfer Girl” as her record player clicked on.

Suddenly it was Saturday—party day—and it seemed, to look at Junie, as if she had put from her mind her father’s call.

Kids weren’t expected until one o’clock, but Junie was up by seven, getting ready. By eight thirty the table had been set. They didn’t have enough chairs for so many kids, so their mom had set out pillows on the living room floor and a buffet in the kitchen with the tent cake and a big bowl of potato chips. Also M&M’s and party hats and a giant basket to hold the goodie bags. Junie and Nate had worked all afternoon the day before putting the treats in the goodie bags: a noisemaker, a lollipop, a balloon, and a sticker for every guest.