At the bottom of the list, I added:

23. Jesse is staying.

I got back into bed, not sleepy. After a minute, I jumped up again, leaned into the hallway, and yelled, “Dad! Are we having a wedding?”

And Dad yelled back, “You bet we are!”

Jesse

In the beginning, it was hard for me to sleep at Dad’s new apartment. I had only lived in one place before. Now it was: Different room. Different bed. Different sounds. No Mom.

Dad bought plants for every window and painted a new rainbow on the wall above my new bed. He bought my little orange couch (for sleepovers), and my puffy purple chair, and my red rug. He bought me new sheets, a new comforter, and two new pillows. He read to me every night.

But at Dad’s, I woke up a lot. Sometimes it was my eczema itching. Eczema feels worse at night. But sometimes it wasn’t the eczema, and I didn’t know what it was. I’d get up and stand in the hall outside Dad’s bedroom, holding my pillows and listening to him snore. I liked his snoring. After a while, I’d go in, find the rolled-up sleeping bag under Dad’s bed, and spread it out on the floor. I liked the shadows on the ceiling of Dad’s room. As soon as I saw those shadows, I felt all right.

That happened a lot of nights. He always left that sleeping bag under his bed so I’d know where to find it. Those first months at Dad’s, it was like I had to build a hundred bridges, from me to every new piece of furniture, every new lamp, every new fork, even the bathroom faucets and the lock on the door, until, slowly, all of Dad’s new things stopped feeling wrong.

Jesse moved in with us two years later, at the beginning of fifth grade, right before Dad told me about them getting married. The things Jesse brought never felt wrong. They felt like presents.

Jesse brought three old movie posters, a radio, his big blue coffee mug, and an old-fashioned telephone—the kind you dial by sticking your finger in a hole and dragging it. And he also brought his big sister, Sheila, who had already been my babysitter for two years. Sheila didn’t actually live with us, but once Jesse moved in, she came over a lot. (She still does.) Jesse likes to say that Sheila is a true Southern lady, and every time he does, she winks at me. They grew up in Arkansas, so I guess that means they’re both Southern.

Jesse wakes up early. He usually has the radio on when I walk into the kitchen. By the time Dad wakes up, Jesse and I are already eating our double-toast. That’s what Jesse calls toast that’s buttered on both sides.