Abby’s face is all lit up now. “Holy smokes!” she yells, which is hilarious because it makes her sound just like Pop. “We all have A’s!”

“Yes, we do.”

“What’s Pop’s first name?”

“Ryan,” I say. “A long time ago Pop told me his name means ‘little king.’ Which I guess would make you a princess.”

But her face falls. “Pop’s different from us. He’s not a A.”

“That’s a good thing,” I say. “It would be boring if we were all the same.”

My father’s name is Aaron, I realize with an inward cringe.

Dear god. We can’t lose Pop.

My phone starts to ring. Abby grabs it out of my bag and holds it up. Yep. Pop. As if he could hear us talking about him from two thousand miles away. Calling to video chat.

Abby presses accept before I can decide whether talking to him right now is doable.

“Poppy!” Ada beams.

“Hi, sweeties!” He’s smiling. He has a particular smile he uses almost exclusively for Abby, so big and wide it shows his back molars. I love that smile. I even tried to draw it once, but the teeth turned out kind of scary. I’m not good with teeth.

“We went swimming!” Abby cries.

“I can see that, Abby-cakes! And now you’re all wet!”

“I’m getting drier, though. We went down all the slides, but I need a quiet time now so I’m going to go in the hammock, and Ada’s going to read me Amelia Bedelia.” Without waiting a second longer, she runs to the hammock and flings herself in. I can hear Pop’s chuckles as the white rope envelops her. I gather up our bag and sunscreen and stuff and jog after her. It takes me a few tries to figure out how to get into the hammock without tipping us over. Finally I just kind of back my butt in and swing myself down.

Abby shifts the phone so Pop can see both of us.

My eyes prickle, seeing his face. This is a bad idea. I’ve never kept a secret like this from Pop before. I’ve never felt like I had to.

He’s at work. He’s wearing his scrubs and directly behind him there’s a shelf full of medical supplies.

“Are you hiding in the supply closet?” I ask.

“It’s been one of those days.” He gives me a look that means, I’ll tell you later. Pop loves to try to gross me out with stories of bizarre or improbable things that happen in the ER. But not in front of Abby, who screams like someone is murdering her whenever she sees or hears anything blood-related. “How’s the trip going?” he asks.

“Great!” Abby says. “We saw dolphins, and we saw a volcano, and we rode a big bus, and we ate a lot of pineapple and pigs.”