“I’m sorry,” Hallie said and sat at the table. “I keep screwing this up. All I want is to help Dad and . . .” She paused and then looked at Colleen. “And fix things between us.”

“You think embarrassing me in front of Walter was a good start? Yelling at him about me. About me!”

Shane made a groaning noise in the back of his throat. “Please, enough already with Walter.”

Colleen composed herself. “Let’s focus here. Shane, we’ll meet at your apartment at ten tomorrow. We’ll make a plan.”

On cue to cut the tension in the room, the little nieces came rushing in. It was Rosie who spoke, but they both waved their magic wands in the air, glitter scattering like dust motes. “The movie is stuck. The little wheel keeps going around and around.”

“It’s the Internet,” Shane said. “Let me reboot it.”

Rosie waved her wand at Colleen. “Where’s your wand, Aunt Lena? Maybe it will fix the movie.”

How could she not smile? Was it their fault their dad was a cheating liar? Or that their mom was a betrayer? “Hold on.” Colleen winked at them and ran to the back bedroom to seize her wand and returned waving it.

Holding hands, Rosie, Sadie and Colleen tiptoed back into the room where the girls had been watching the movie and waved their wands with all their might, glitter catching in the morning rays that washed through the dusty windows. And just like that, the screen image disappeared and a moment later reappeared showing an old man and his dog running after a house being pulled skyward by balloons. They burst into laughter, the girls grabbing Colleen around the waist.

Colleen, of course, knew that Shane had booted the Internet just as they’d waved their wands. There was no magic.

The girls made whooping noises and plopped onto two small pink beanbag chairs, each labeled with one of their names in a loopy monogrammed script. Colleen’s heart opened another inch or maybe two; she could almost hear the creaking noises of the rusted hinges. But it was only for the girls. When she turned to leave the room, Hallie stood at the doorway with a smile, big and bright.

“Hold on,” Shane called from the kitchen. “I’ll fix the Internet and then I have to go.”

Colleen burst into laughter and Hallie stared at her in confusion. “What’s so funny?”

Colleen held her wand high. “If only these worked with Dad.”

Chapter Twenty

Memory creates our frames.

Dana Walrath, Aliceheimer’s

SEVEN DAYS UNTIL THE PARTY . . .

Often the world awoke when Colleen wanted it to sleep. She’d shared that sentiment with her dad one morning when she was very small. “Please tell Saturday to sleep in,” she’d said. “I want to, and I can’t if I think I’m missing something.”