“Yep,” I said. I hated how everyone acted like I ought to be grateful that Izzy liked my daughter, that Izzy’s parents welcomed Junie into their home. No one ever asked me what I thought, probably would have been surprised to discover that I wasn’t grateful at all. That I would’ve put a stop to the friendship a long time ago if I could have figured out a way to do it without breaking my daughter’s heart. I resented the phone calls from Jenny arranging get-togethers, always assuming, even after constant reminders to the contrary, that my schedule was endlessly flexible. I looked away from the perfunctory waves Izzy’s father, Zach, gave from the front porch when I pulled up in my ancient Honda, the back window jury-rigged out of cardboard and duct tape. I kept waiting (and wishing) for the first bloom of friendship to fade, for some stupid drama to tear the girls apart. But it had been years now, and so far, the bond they had was made of stronger stuff. And I didn’t like that, either. Hated thinking about what it might mean.

I dropped the rag on the counter and pressed my hands into my lower back. I was too young to feel like such shit at the end of the day, my legs aching and spine a dull throb. You would have thought the snow might’ve made for a quiet day at the diner, but weather was everyone’s second-favorite topic, right behind politics. The place had been hopping all day, only now emptying out as everyone made their way home for dinner. The pie rack had been cleared out, and I didn’t want to estimate how many cups of coffee I’d poured in the last eight hours. Lots of jawing and not a whole lot of tipping. My least favorite kind of day.

“Looks like your brother’s pulling in,” Louise said. “Hope he doesn’t want a piece of apple. He’s shit outta luck.”

I straightened up, watched Cal’s car slide to a stop out front. Even after all these years, the sight of my brother behind the wheel of a patrol car came as a little shock. We’d spent the majority of our childhoods evading the cops, grew up always keeping one eye out for the law. The kind of public service that might earn us an extra dollar from the dealers using our mama’s cracked countertop as a storefront. So cop hadn’t exactly been at the top of my list of promising potential professions for my brother. But he’d surprised me, first by becoming one and then turning out to be good at the job. Word around town was he was tough but always fair. Which was more than could be said for his boss and the other lazy-ass deputies. Once, when Thomas had spent a night in jail after he’d made a drunken mess of himself, he’d told me that Cal had “a real nice way about him, even when he was putting on the cuffs.” Praise for the law didn’t come higher than that, not around here.