“Morning, Rose.”

The vaguely familiar voice comes from behind me, and I turn and see Alec. He’s walking my way, packaged neatly in a crisp, blue button-down shirt and thin olive slacks. A little boy holds his hand.

“Hi, Alec.”

“That your son heading in over there?”

“Yes,” I say. “Max. Just starting sixth grade.”

“Well, this is Micah,” he says, then looks down at his son. “Looks like you’ll have another friend, buddy. Max just moved here from…” Alec looks over to me.

“Wisconsin,” I say.

“Wisconsin. That’s right.” Alec smiles, and everything around me warms a degree or two. “Micah’s starting sixth grade, too. It’ll be nice for him to meet Max. Micah, this is Rose.”

Micah looks a lot like Alec, just with lighter skin and thoughtfully chaotic hair. Looking at this boy, I can already imagine what a striking man he will someday become. He reaches out his right hand and offers it to me.

“How do you do?” he asks.

In a thousand years, Max would never offer his hand and a how do you do to a stranger. I take Micah’s small hand and give it a shake. His grip is stronger than I expected.

“Well, I’m just fine, Micah. Nice to meet you.”

The pleasantness of this little exchange is ended by another voice, this one also distantly familiar, but not in a comforting way.

“There you are.”

I turn and see a bullet of a woman walking with a brisk huff directly toward us. Her gaze is drilled into Alec.

Tasha Collins.

Like my sister, she hasn’t aged as much as she’s been maintained, like a car whose owner keeps applying wax in hopes of hiding the wear from all those miles. Her long, lush hair looks unnaturally black, as if it were dipped in a giant inkwell, and her face has a plastic sheen to it, no doubt the subject of a lengthy, daily makeup routine. But otherwise Tasha looks just like she did in high school. Tall, pale, and slim, a beautiful, brittle mannequin, ever unsmiling, as if doing so would wrinkle some of the smooth.

“You’re late,” she says, coming up a few feet from us and stopping with still no acknowledgment of Micah or me.

Alec sighs lightly, perhaps a micromeditation necessary before any conversation with his ex.

“Good morning to you as well,” he says. His voice takes on an edge, the kind that conveys his desire to scream at Tasha were he not around others. I picture him angry, realizing it’s not hard to do. Nostrils flared, forearms tensed, veins in his temples pounding. I’ll bet Alec and Tasha have had some epic arguments.

“You know I wanted to talk to his teacher before class started.”

“Hi, Mama,” Micah says.

Tasha finally notices him, bending down and giving him a swift, almost aggressive kiss on the forehead. “Hi, sweetheart. Ready for your first day?”

“Uh-huh.”

Tasha straightens and faces me. Blinks a couple of times with owl-like wonder. “I know you,” she says. “How do I know you?”