Jess was seven when her parents announced they were getting a divorce.

It was a Tuesday in June, the week after the Larchmont public schools shut down for the summer, and the family had just grilled hamburgers in the backyard. Dessert was ice-cream sandwiches, Jess’s favorite, which she would later throw up on the blue-and-white-striped rug in her bedroom.

All of the O’Fineses were there: Jess, Teddy, Whee, and Danny, in a bad humor since he had made plans to go into the city to meet friends.

“Let’s retire to the living room,” Aldie had said. “It looks like rain.”

“Why do we need to retire at all?” Danny asked. “I’ve made other arrangements for tonight.”

“I told you that your father and I wanted to speak to all of you together after dinner. Did you forget?” Delilah asked.

“I just hoped you’d forget,” Danny said, following his father into the television room, where they sat, Delilah and Aldie side by side on a piano bench, the children, not exactly still children, sinking into the sectional.

Aldie spoke first, a hitch in his voice as if he were about to weep, something Danny pointed out later.

“Did you check Dad out? He was almost crying. Obviously, this decision was Mom’s,” he told his siblings.

“After years of deliberation, your mother and I have concluded that we are going to separate,” Aldie began, as if he were a stranger reading a script for a play.

“Years of deliberation?” Danny asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means that we are taking this very seriously and have discussed it for a long time,” Delilah said.

“Our family means everything to your mother and me,” Aldie added.

Delilah would stay in the family house with Jess and Teddy, who was eleven; Aldie would move to an apartment in New York City; Whee would be leaving for college in a year; and Danny was already a sophomore at Tufts in Boston. Chaucer, the family’s black lab, would continue to live with Delilah in Larchmont, although Madeline, the parakeet, would be given away.

Poor Madeline, Jess was thinking. Why should she suffer when she’s just a bird?

“I want to go back to what you referred to as years of deliberation,” Danny said. “How many years have you been thinking about a divorce?”

Delilah shrugged.

“What do you think, Aldie? Six, seven?”

“Eight,” Aldie said with confidence, as if he had in mind a fixed date when the troubles began.

“That’s a long time,” Whee said.

“I guess there’s nothing to say,” Danny said.

“You should feel free to ask us anything at all,” Aldie said.

Jess made a funny sound in her throat, as if she might be sick.

“I have nothing to ask,” Danny said.

“Whee?”

Whee shook her head.

“I’d really like to cut this short,” Danny said.

“If that’s the way you want it.” Aldie glanced at Delilah, who was tapping her fingernails against the wooden bench.

“Girls?” Aldie asked.

But no one spoke.

Jess and Teddy sat on the sectional, pressed together, looking down at their laps.

“Do you girls have any worries?” Aldie asked gently.

“No worries for sure,” Teddy said in a tinny voice. “So …” She didn’t finish.

“So?” Aldie asked.

“So if we’re finished with the conversation, why don’t you guys go,” Teddy said. “Leave the family room.”

Aldie got up and clapped his hands together, saying he and Delilah wanted to see the new Woody Allen movie and the family was invited to join them.

“I don’t think so,” Danny said, finishing the rest of his father’s beer. “But have a good time.”

The children stood at the south window of the family room and watched their parents climb into the old Volvo and back out of the driveway.

“The movies! What are they thinking about?” Whee asked. “As if tonight, when they’ve put an end to our lives forever, is just a normal night and off they go in the car to the movies as if nothing whatever has happened.”

“So they have been lying to us for eight years?” Teddy asked.

“Not lying exactly,” Whee said. “They’ve been trying to work things out, whatever that means.”

“I hate them,” Teddy said.

“So, eight years ago. What was going on then?” Danny asked. “I was twelve and had just been asked to repeat sixth grade.”

“I was nine,” Whee said. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything of my childhood except trying to be perfect all the time. Teddy was almost four.”

“And I wasn’t born,” Jess said.

“That’s right,” Whee said. “You weren’t born until the next May.”

Jess collapsed on the sofa and rested her head on Teddy’s shoulder.

“So why did they decide to have me if they were thinking of getting a divorce?”

“That’s a good question. Why did they?” Danny asked.

“I think I know why,” Whee said, sitting in the wing chair next to the sofa. “I mean their marriage was getting unhappy, so what do they do to make it happy? They make another baby to liven things up.”

“What does that mean?” Jess asked.

“It means you were a Save-the-Marriage Baby, Jess.” Whee kicked off her flip-flops, crossed her legs, and rested her feet on the coffee table.

“A what?” Jess asked.

“A new beautiful little baby is what they were thinking, and then they wouldn’t need to get a divorce.”

“Brilliant, Whee,” Danny said. “I’m sure you’re right. Jessica O’Fines, the Save-the-Marriage Baby.”

And ever after that night when Jess was seven, her siblings called her the Save-the-Marriage Baby, long before Jess even thought about the consequences of divorce or sex or what it was to be a normal girl in a normal family.

“So they didn’t really want me?” Jess asked.

“They wanted you, and they also wanted you to save their marriage,” Teddy said.

“Actually, a failed Save-the-Marriage Baby is what you are,” Danny said, laughing and hugging his little sister as if they all thought it was very funny.

But it wasn’t a bit funny to Jess.

So the Save-the-Marriage Baby hadn’t worked. The marriage wasn’t saved. Her father moved to an apartment in New York City. Her mother stayed in the house with Jess and Teddy and Chaucer, often crying at the dinner table.

And finally, in some complicated way that Jess didn’t exactly understand, the divorce became her fault.

She had not been good enough or smart enough or pretty enough or strong enough to save her parents’ marriage, and so their lives as a family were ruined.

And that was a fact.