“But listen. After I got back here, everything felt different. I missed you guys. I missed Rocco. It was like part of me belonged in New York, with all of you. I felt like I was missing something, and that felt good and bad. Both, you know? You’re used to having two places. But I’m not. I never had a home with Daddy after the divorce. But now I want to.”

My happiness made me feel huge when she said that, as big as the whole room, and I almost told her about my joy balloons, but I didn’t.

I almost told her about number six on the list of Things That Will Not Change: We are still a family, but in a different way. But I didn’t.

I almost told her about my bedroom windows at Mom’s, about “utta moon,” and how sometimes my life feels like a room with two windows and two moons. Then I did tell her, even though I knew she might think it was weird. Happiness makes me feel brave.

“Two moons,” she said. “That’s cool. It’s almost like—” She stopped.

“Like what?”

“Don’t laugh, but it kind of sounds like a secret power. The girls who can see two moons.”

I said, “The sisters who can see two moons.”

She grinned and made a peace sign at me. I made one back. Then a door banged open behind her and I saw one of her little brothers streak across the room in a pair of shorts and no shirt, like he had just run in from the beach or something. It’s weird to turn on a computer at night in New York City and see California in the daytime.

Sonia said, “I have to go. I’m supposed to be watching my brothers.”

I said, “Did Sheila tell you her idea for the wedding theme?”

“Sunshine?”

“It’s great, right? But only if you like it.”

She smiled. “I do.”

The Colonial Breakfast

Our colonial breakfast wasn’t at breakfast time—it started at 2:30, a half hour before dismissal. But Mr. Home said it was a “loose interpretation” of a colonial breakfast, anyway. A lot of colonists just stood up drinking beer in the dark for breakfast, he said, and we certainly weren’t going to do that.

Jesse showed up at school right on time, waiting with his bucket of oysters in the hall with all the parents while we pushed our chairs to the walls and put out our cups of cider, our beef jerky, our bread, and our butter pots. When we were ready, Mr. Home opened the door.