But that’s in the past. Things are going to be different now. This is a fresh start for both of us.

Josh takes an overly exaggerated whiff of air. “It smells too saucy.”

I stare at him. “What does that mean? You can’t smell too much sauce.”

Margie winks. “I think he’s smelling the butter garlic.”

He crinkles his nose. “I don’t like garlic. Can’t we just go to McDonald’s?”

I don’t quite understand how you can love somebody so much, yet so frequently want to throttle them.

“First of all,” I say, “there’s no McDonald’s in Raker, so no, we can’t go to McDonald’s. And second, Margie made us a delicious home-cooked meal. If you don’t want it, you can make your own dinner.”

Margie laughs. “You sound like my daughter.”

I’m hoping that’s a compliment. “Thank you so much for coming today, Margie. You’ll be here to meet Josh after school on Monday? The school bus is supposed to be here around three.”

“It’s a date!” she confirms.

I walk Margie to the door, even though she’s got her own key. Just before I bid her goodbye, she hesitates, a groove between her gray eyebrows. “Listen, Brooke…”

If she tells me she’s quitting, I am going to curl up in a ball and cry. She was the only available sitter even remotely in my price range, and I can barely afford her as is. “Yes…?”

“Josh seems really nervous about starting school,” she says. “I know it’s hard being in a new town and all, especially at his age. But he seemed even more anxious than I would expect.”

“Oh…”

“I don’t want to worry you, dear,” she says. “I just wanted to let you know.”

My heart goes out to my ten-year-old son. I can’t blame him for missing McDonald’s. McDonald’s is familiar. Raker is not familiar, and neither is this house. In his entire life, my parents would never let us visit—they always came out to us in the city, until I told them they couldn’t anymore. This town is home for me, but to Josh, it’s a town full of strangers.

And I can think of a few other reasons why he would be scared about starting school after what happened back in Queens.

“I’ll take care of it,” I say. “Thanks again, Margie.”

I come back into the kitchen, where Josh is sitting at the kitchen table, playing with the salt and pepper shakers. He’s making a little pile of salt and pepper, which I’ve told him repeatedly not to do, but I’m not angry about it right now. I slide into the seat across from him.

“Hey, buddy,” I say. “You okay?”

Josh traces his first initial, J, in the pile of condiments on the table. “Yeah.”

“Feeling nervous about school?”