CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Between Friends

BY THE TIME DINNER ROLLED AROUND THE NEXT NIGHT, Horace’s nerves—which had begun to simmer the moment Chloe suggested their mothers meet—were boiling over. He’d never seen his mom so anxious before, and if she was nervous, he was sure there was good reason to be.

April and Chloe—and Arthur, of course—had gone back to the academy early in the morning. April was headed back home tonight to talk to her family. Beck was driving her, with Gabriel as escort. With any luck, she’d be back by Sunday.

Horace’s mom had spent the day cleaning the house and preparing the meal. She made both meat loaf and an enormous dish of macaroni and cheese, plus a veggie plate and a daunting pile of rolls. And a pie. Horace didn’t get the sense that she was trying to impress anyone; the flurry of activity felt more like busywork than anything.

When the doorbell rang at 7:29, his mom smoothed her dress. “It’s going to be fine,” she said. Horace had the distinct feeling she wasn’t talking to him.

They answered the door. Chloe came in like she lived there. Right behind her, to Horace’s surprise, came Joshua—the mysterious little boy who had written with the Vora in blue. Isabel came in last, carrying a large patchwork bag. There was no sign of Chloe’s dad. Isabel and Horace’s mom exchanged muted greetings and then an awkward, one-armed hug, during which his mom’s earring got tangled in Isabel’s bushy red hair. Horace was shocked to hear his mother stammer nervously like a child, clearly flustered.

Technically, Horace hadn’t been introduced to Isabel yet, but she shook his hand and then introduced Joshua in turn. She didn’t explain his presence. The boy shook Horace’s hand gravely, and then his mother’s, saying to both of them in turn, “Thank you for welcoming me into your home.”

“Quite the manners, I see,” Horace’s mother said, and then she turned to Chloe. “Where’s your dad?”

Isabel answered for her. “He dropped us off, but we thought things might be better without him this time, all things considered. He sends his apologies.”

“That’s fine,” said Horace’s mom. “I gave my husband a pass, too. He’s out with friends tonight.”

Isabel clapped her hands together. “Perfect. Just us moms, then.”

Chloe rolled her eyes at Horace. Now that he was seeing her and Isabel side by side in the light, he could see just how much they resembled each other. They were clearly mother and daughter—same small frame, same fierce but pretty face, same dark, intelligent eyes.

While Horace’s mom took Isabel and Joshua on a mini tour, Horace and Chloe set the table. In harsh whispers, Chloe complained about how she was sure Isabel had talked her dad into not coming.

Horace said, “Oh, I don’t know. If I were him, I wouldn’t want to be here either.”

Chloe scowled. “Why is everyone dreading this so much?”

“Not everyone likes confrontation as much as you do, Chloe.”

A few minutes later, the five of them sat down to dinner. It was clear from the start that nobody really knew what to say. The last time Horace had seen Isabel, she’d more or less saved his life, and it seemed strange not to acknowledge it now. But at the same time, she was the woman who’d nearly killed his best friend, and who’d abandoned her as a child—an opposite but equally awkward topic of conversation. And although his mother made a few game attempts at small talk with Isabel to get the evening started, they clearly had nothing small to talk about. The way Horace figured it, they were here to talk about big stuff anyway, so they might as well get to it. But he wasn’t going to be the one to say so.

Only Joshua, with a kind of innocent, robotic formality, seemed oblivious to the tension around the table. He piled his plate high with food and dug into it with gusto while everyone else nibbled. Between bites, he recited a list of his twelve favorite foods, inspired by the fact that macaroni and cheese was number two—the box kind, not the homemade kind. He then launched into his own bizarre account of the journey he, Isabel, and April had made into the city, burying them with details about directions, distances, and landmarks, but saying almost nothing about what had actually happened.

Joshua was just describing the location and orientation of an ice-cream stand near the Chicago Botanical Gardens when Isabel interrupted him, pointing her fork at Horace. “You’re the Keeper of the Fel’Daera,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Quite a coincidence, if you believe in that sort of thing. Who could’ve guessed the Fel’Daera would choose Jessica’s son? I tuned the box, you know, back when I was with the Wardens.”

Horace didn’t really appreciate the reminder. “Yeah, that’s what my mom said.”

“She tried to tune it herself, if I remember right, but the box was a mess,” said Isabel. “Isn’t it spooky that your mother held your Tan’ji in her hands years before you even existed? A thing like that can’t happen very often.”

Possibly just another coincidence, Horace thought, but that hardly concerned him as much as the first thing she’d said. “The box was a mess?” he asked. “How?”

“Oh, the veins were clogged and tangled. Some of them nearly torn. I don’t know what happened to its last Keeper, but . . .” She shivered dramatically, scrunching up her face in fearful disgust.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Horace.

“Let’s just say not every Keeper retires, if you follow me.”

Horace’s mom sat back, watching. She looked sharp all of a sudden—angry and impatient. “Can I ask you why you did it, Isabel? Why did you steal the harp?”

Isabel hesitated briefly before answering. “Miradel was mine.”

Horace’s mom frowned at the name, shaking her head in consternation. “You knew the harps weren’t ours to keep.”

Isabel laid down her fork. “Why are you attacking me? You know what they did to us.”

“I’m not attacking you. I’m trying to understand the things you’ve done.”

“We were supposed to be Tan’ji.”

“I’ve never been crazy about that word.”

“Tan’ji?”

“Supposed.”

Isabel scoffed. “Semantics. You know as well as I do that our instruments were there that day. They were ours, and now they’re lost.”

“I’m the first to admit the Wardens should have told us what was happening.”

Isabel rolled her eyes. “Very polite. You weren’t nearly so polite about it back then.”

“To be fair, I wasn’t nearly as grown-up, either.”

“We still could be Tan’ji,” Isabel insisted. “The veins are still there. If they can snip them apart, they can sew them together again.”

“And that’s why you came back.”

Horace had been frozen in his seat, overwhelmed by his mother’s knifing tone and the rapid-fire exchange, but at these words he looked over at Chloe. Her face was a brewing storm.

Isabel seemed to remember herself too. “You got me sidetracked. I came back for my family. To ask forgiveness.”

“Except you haven’t,” Chloe said abruptly. “Asked, I mean.”

“Of course I have.”

“No, you haven’t.” Chloe’s expression turned thoughtful, remembering. “In fact, you haven’t even said you were sorry.”

Looking genuinely bewildered, Isabel began to sputter. “I . . . of course I am. I’m so sorry—sorrier than you can know. But even if I did beg for forgiveness, would you care? You’re not going to forgive me—and you shouldn’t. Not yet.”

“No. I shouldn’t. But you should still ask.”

“It hurts too much to ask for something you won’t give. You know what I want. I’m sorry for leaving you, Clover. A thousand times sorry.”

Her words sounded sincere, but to Horace she looked anything but sorry. She and Chloe glared at each other across the table. Horace was struck again by how alike they were.

“Why is Isabel sorry?” Joshua said. He’d stopped eating and now sat wide-eyed, half a roll in his hand.

“Because she’s a terrible person,” said Chloe. Isabel shoved her chair back and shot to her feet, stalking out of the room.

No one spoke. Joshua looked as if he was about to cry. Chloe poked guiltily at her macaroni. “Well, that was exciting,” she said after a while.

Jessica sighed and stood up. “I’ll go get her.”

Chloe stuck her fork upright in her meat loaf. “I think our dads had the right idea tonight,” she said.

“You were the one who wanted this.”

“I’m aware of that, Horace. Thanks.”

“What were you hoping would happen?”

“I don’t know. Your mom just seems to have the answers so much of the time. I thought she could help.”

“Maybe she can. Maybe she is.”

“Maybe.” Chloe looked over her shoulder out the doorway. Horace took a bite of a roll. He could hear his mother and Isabel talking in low voices downstairs. Chloe said, “I went to see Mr. Meister today. To ask him about the kaitan.”

“The Tuner machine? Wow. What did he say?”

“The usual. Drastic times. Drastic measures.” She glanced down at the Fel’Daera. “It was because of the box that they turned our mothers into Tuners, you know. Not that that’s your fault or anything.”

Horace, mouth half full, stopped chewing. “What are you talking about?”

“According to Mr. Meister, he was expecting a delivery at the time. An Altari was coming, some kind of big shot, bringing a few very powerful Tan’layn. ‘Instruments of great consequence,’ he said.”

Horace swallowed. Sil’falo Teneves. The Maker of the Fel’Daera. “And one of those instruments was the box,” he said.

“That’s what I gathered. Some of the instruments were in bad shape, like Isabel was just saying. The Wardens needed a Tuner if they had any chance of finding new Keepers for these powerful instruments, but they didn’t have one. And so . . .”

“So the kaitan.”

“Yup.”

Horace slipped his fingers into the pouch and rubbed the lid of the box. So much history there, so many unknown deeds. It was hard not to feel connected to them all, hard not to feel responsible.

“I don’t want you to feel guilty,” Chloe said, reading his mood. “You had nothing to do with that. It was all Mr. Meister. And honestly, I think he told me that story today—about the Fel’Daera—so that I’d forgive him for turning my mom into a Tuner.”

“And do you?”

“Not really. Especially since he wouldn’t tell me what her instrument was. But think about it—my mother had to tune the box so that the box could find its Keeper. And that Keeper turned out to be you. It’s sort of . . . cosmically satisfying, I guess.” She elbowed him. “Even though it took you like twenty years to show up.”

He laughed. “To be fair, I had to be born and stuff first.”

“Some excuse.” She took a bite of meat loaf and chewed it slowly. “So . . . I’ve been thinking. About whether or not the Wardens could actually fix my mom—you know, make her Tan’ji again. I know she’s kind of crazy, but what she said makes sense. If the Wardens can undo being Tan’ji, why can’t they redo it? Like you said, anything is possible, right?”

Her tone was light, the way it always was when she floated an idea she wanted to believe in, but couldn’t yet commit to. Whatever else she claimed she felt, it was clear Chloe hadn’t totally given up on her mother. “It might be possible,” Horace said. “But it sounds to me like her instrument—whatever it was—was destroyed by the kaitan. Or as good as destroyed anyway.”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about Miradel.”

“The wicker harp? I don’t see how. Surely you can’t just create the bond with any old instrument. Especially a harp, I would think. A harp isn’t Tan’ji.”

“But you said it yourself—maybe Brian could do it. You saw what he did with the Ravenvine.”

Joshua said, “What’s the Ravenvine?”

Horace actually jumped—he’d forgotten the boy was even here.

“April’s Tan’ji,” Chloe explained.

Joshua looked deeply impressed. “So it’s fixed now? Brian fixed it?”

Chloe just frowned at him, apparently realizing she’d said too much. “The point is,” she told Horace, “maybe the reason Isabel can’t control the wicker harp is because she’s not Tan’ji. Maybe if she could be bonded to the harp, things would change.”

“That’s a lot of maybes.”

Chloe bit her lip. “Maybe.”

“Besides, even if Brian could do something like that, it’s hard to imagine Mr. Meister would allow it.”

A voice behind them spoke. “He does enjoy his rules.”

Horace and Chloe spun around. Isabel stood in the doorway, looking especially wild. She couldn’t have been there long, but she had obviously caught Horace’s last words.

Isabel came in and took her seat. “Sorry I stormed off. Emotions got the better of me, as they sometimes do. But I suppose sometimes we all do things—and say things—we wish we hadn’t.” Isabel leaned forward, staring hard at Chloe. “So tell me,” she said, her tone as light as her gaze was heavy. “Who is this Brian? I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

Chloe shrugged, acting nonchalant as only Chloe could. “It’s no pleasure, believe me. He’s nobody special—T-shirt collector, girl chaser.”

But Joshua piped up. “He fixed April’s Tan’ji.”

Isabel’s dark eyes glittered. Her mouth fell open and she blinked several times before collecting herself. “So it’s fixed! Incredible.” She lifted her glass of water. “Cheers to our Brian.” She took a sip, though no one else had so much as moved. Then she sat there for a full minute, apparently lost in thought. Horace could hear his mother banging around in the kitchen and he almost got up to help her, just to get away. Joshua continued to work on his meat loaf, and Chloe fiddled with the dragonfly.

At last Isabel broke the silence. “And tonight April is headed back home, yes? To tell her family she’s been invited to join the Wardens?”

“That’s right,” Horace said.

“I’m surprised you two didn’t go with her. Someone needs to keep her safe.”

Chloe glowered at her. “She’s got company. They can handle things.”

“Oh, good,” Isabel said, sounding genuinely relieved. She shook her head. “A lucky day for her, lucky for sure. I guess our trip was worthwhile after all.” She gave Chloe a sad look. “Even if nothing else comes of it.”

“What about me?” Joshua asked.

“You,” Isabel said blankly, and then broke into a sudden smile. She grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a jovial shake. “Yes, of course—you. You stick with me. You’ll get what you came for, I promise.”

Horace’s mom returned, carrying the pie and a stack of plates. “It seems Joshua was the only one that had an appetite for dinner,” she said. “Which means there ought to be room for dessert.”

They each took a slice of pie. Raspberry, Horace’s favorite. They ate in silence until Isabel said abruptly, “It’s lucky you two found each other.”

It took Horace a beat to realize she meant Chloe and him.

“Why?” asked Chloe.

“I’m assuming you look after Horace.”

“We look after each other,” Chloe corrected.

“But it’s the Keeper of the Fel’Daera who really needs protection, isn’t it?” Horace’s mom shifted uneasily in her seat, looking sidelong at Isabel. Isabel said, “And my daughter is the one who’s doing the protecting.” She smiled at Chloe. “I’m glad. It’s in your nature.”

Chloe said, “I must’ve gotten that from Dad’s side of the family.”

Isabel laughed softly. “Yes, and you got your moxie from mine.” She plucked a berry from her pie and ate it. “Jess, I never imagined that our kids would grow up to be friends. That they would look after each other. Support each other. Love each other.”

Chloe sank down in her seat. Horace stared studiously at his pie.

“Well,” said Horace’s mom cautiously, “we’re lucky to have Chloe around. She’s practically—” She cut herself off, but everyone could hear the words she’d left unsaid. Part of the family. “It’s like we’ve known her forever,” she finished limply.

Isabel nodded, and then got to her feet. “I’m afraid I’ve got to use the restroom. Where was it again?”

Horace’s mother pointed. “Upstairs, first door on the right.”

“Feel free to talk about me while I’m gone,” Isabel said, and left.

After she’d gone, Horace’s mom pantomimed wiping sweat off her brow. “I cannot tell a lie,” she said. “I’ve hosted better parties.”

“I’m sorry,” said Chloe. “This was a mistake.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m glad to see her face to face again.”

“So what do you think about her?”

“She’s definitely unpredictable.”

“Yeah, but . . . what do you think?”

Jessica mulled it over. Then she turned to Joshua and said, “Joshua, would you excuse us for a moment? If you like, you can go downstairs and watch TV.”

Joshua looked doubtful. “I don’t watch TV.”

“Okay then, I tell you what, there’s a world atlas on the shelf down there—”

“Yes please, thank you,” Joshua said, and he was up and gone, leaving his pie behind.

Horace’s mother watched him go, then leaned over the table conspiratorially. “I’m not crazy about passing these kinds of judgments, Chloe, but if you’re asking me if you can trust your mother, my answer is no. You were right—she hasn’t changed much since I saw her last. She’s still too overwrought about the wicker harp, and about her status as a Tuner. I’m sure she surrendered the harp to Mr. Meister because she thought it would soften him up. That it would get him to help her in the long run. But that’s not to say she doesn’t love you, that she doesn’t want to be back in your life. Honestly, I think she wants to reconcile with the Wardens and with her family.”

Chloe squirmed uncomfortably but didn’t disagree.

Horace’s mother continued. “Now, if you’re asking me if you should help her . . .” She reached out and took Chloe’s hand, squeezing it. Chloe stared down at the hand and then squeezed back. “Chloe, she’s your mother. In an ideal world, she’s the one that should be helping you. But this world—our world—is rarely ideal.”

“So what should I do?”

“Isabel has to prove herself to you. To everyone. And I think the least we can do—and possibly the most we can do—is to give her that chance.”

“Cautiously,” Chloe offered.

“That goes without saying. But I do believe she only wants good things for you.”

Chloe nodded, swallowing. “Okay. Let me ask you this, then. What if . . . what do you think about the possibility that . . .”

She looked at Horace, pleading, and he stepped in. “We’ve been talking about whether Isabel really could become Tan’ji. We’re wondering if somebody with the right talents could help. If, for example, maybe someone who was the Keeper of a Loomdaughter could—”

His mother sat up straight, dropping Chloe’s hand. “Hush,” she hissed. “Don’t say that word again.”

“But—” Horace began.

“You shouldn’t have spoken that word out loud, even to me. Not here.” She leaned back and peeked out into the kitchen. “Some secrets need to stay buried. Isabel can’t hear anything about this, do you understand?”

Horace and Chloe exchanged a look, but neither of them said a word. They went silently back to their pie. Horace’s mother ate, too, but watched them both anxiously, clearly perturbed. At last, nearly in a whisper, she said, “For the record, what you’re asking sounds impossible, but I’ve never—”

Suddenly she went stock-still, her face a mask of shock. She rocketed to her feet so fast her chair tipped over. She raced from the room.

Chloe bolted after her. Horace followed, bewildered. His mother ran up the stairs and burst into her own bedroom, the kids on her heels.

Isabel sat on the bed. An object lay in her lap—a boat with sails of shimmering string.

“Stop that,” Horace’s mom said through gritted teeth. It was her harp, of course. Isabel was looking down at it sweetly, and the strings vibrated on their own, as if an unseen hand were plucking them. “Isabel, stop. That doesn’t belong to you.”

Isabel looked up, her expression dreamy, unconcerned. “Or you. You said so yourself.” The strings continued to play. “But I suppose the old man let you keep it for services rendered, is that the idea?” She gestured at the mighty leestone on the bureau, the sculpture of the raven and tortoise. “And this too! I guess it’s true what they say—what goes around comes around.”

Horace had no clue what that meant. His mother didn’t reply, seemingly transfixed by the shimmering harp in Isabel’s lap. And now he realized there was something floating inside those strings—a clear crystal sphere the size of a large marble. A raven’s eye, its power spent. Where had that come from?

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” his mother demanded, “but you need to stop. That can be felt for miles.”

“Oh, come on—you’ve got a leestone fit for the Warren. You know we’re safe. Snug as bugs.” Isabel bent her head over the harp. The raven’s eye danced, and the strings glittered musically around it. “I surrendered Miradel, you know. To Mr. Meister. It was so hard.”

Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but Horace’s mom stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure it was,” she told Isabel, sounding sincere.

“And then I came up here and I felt your little harp and I just . . . I couldn’t resist. I’m sorry, but I—”

“I understand the urge, Isabel,” Horace’s mom said. “You know I do. But we were just talking about regaining trust. Your own daughter wants to learn to trust you again. And from what you’ve said, I think you want that too. Do you think this helps? What you’re doing right now?”

“What is she doing?” Horace said hoarsely, transfixed by the floating raven’s eye.

His mother just shook her head. Apparently she couldn’t follow whatever Isabel was doing.

“I told you,” Isabel said petulantly. “I’m just toying. And that’s all this harp is, anyway—a toy. No offense. I suppose that’s why Mr. Meister let you keep it.”

Now Chloe did speak, her voice like a blade. “It may be a toy, but you’re the child. You say you want to be back in our lives. But what you’re doing right now tells me that there’s no place for you here.”

Isabel visibly flinched. She sulked, unable to look Chloe in the face, and then focused on the floating raven’s eye for a moment longer. Abruptly, the glittering strings of the harp went still. They faded from sight. The raven’s eye fell and rolled across the floor. Chloe scooped it up, inspecting it closely. It looked unchanged.

“I told you, just playing,” Isabel said, standing and holding out the harp. “Surely you understand, Jess. I mean no harm. I’m trying . . . I really am.”

Horace’s mom took the harp, folding it up again. “It’s time for you to leave.”

Isabel held up her hands as if surrendering. “I agree. Matthew should be here any second. I called him ten minutes ago.” When Horace’s mom looked baffled, Isabel shrugged wryly. “I knew you’d feel me using your harp,” she explained. “I knew it was the sort of transgression that would get me uninvited.”

“But you did it anyway.”

“Yes, I did it anyway.” She pushed past them and headed downstairs. Halfway down, Horace’s mother spoke to her.

“I might have let you use it, you know. If you’d asked.”

Isabel paused. “Yes. You might have.” She bustled on down the stairs, calling for Joshua.

Horace’s mom thrust her hand out to Chloe. “The raven’s eye. Quick.”

Chloe hurriedly handed it over. Horace’s mom peered into it as if she were a jeweler assessing a great spherical gem, turning it this way and that.

“What did she do to it?” Chloe asked.

“I don’t know. She was running huge threads through the foramen, but all I can see now are traces.”

“Foramen?” Horace asked.

“Yes. Every Tanu—even a simple Tan’kindi like a raven’s eye—has a foramen, a permanent structure crafted out of the Medium by the device’s Maker. It’s sort of like . . . the eye of a needle. An anchor point, but also a passageway. It connects the Tanu to the Medium while also allowing the Medium to flow through. The foramen is the thing we Tuners feel for first when we’re working—everything stems from there.”

Despite the circumstances, Horace hung on her every word. There was so much he still had to learn—so much he might never truly understand. “But this raven’s eye is all used up,” he said.

“It’s still Tanu. The foramen remains intact. And like I told you before, Horace, every Tuner craves a Tanu to work on.” She unfolded her harp with a flick of the wrist and set it on the bed. She plucked lightly at the strings with one hand as she examined the raven’s eye in the other, like a doctor diagnosing a patient.

“So did she do anything to it?” asked Chloe.

“Not that I can see.”

“Could she be tricking you?”

“Yes,” Horace’s mom said immediately, continuing to gaze into the raven’s eye. “Isabel is a hacker, of sorts. She could always string the Medium places you wouldn’t expect, and no one is better at tying off flows. But nothing’s coming in or out of here—that’s for certain. And if there’s anything here at all, it’s delicate beyond anything I think even Isabel could do, even with the wicker harp. I’m guessing that she really was just playing, feeling the thrill of the Medium again. I won’t pretend I don’t understand that urge.”

Swiftly, Chloe snatched up the raven’s eye, slipping it into her own pocket. Horace’s mom opened her mouth as if to argue, but Chloe said decisively, “I’m not leaving this here. Just in case.” Horace’s mom shut her mouth and gave Chloe a resolute nod.

The doorbell rang. Horace heard the front door open, and then the deep, friendly voice of Chloe’s dad. But before they went down, there was something Horace needed to know. “Chloe, wasn’t that your raven’s eye? Why did Isabel have it?”

“I let her have it. I had my reasons at the time, but I guess she did too.”

“Yes, and it might have been the simplest reason of all,” Horace’s mother said, herding them toward the door.

“What’s that?” Horace asked.

“Need.”

Downstairs, Chloe’s dad filled the doorway. Huge but gentle, he apologized for not coming to dinner. Horace noticed that every time he so much as looked at Isabel, he seemed stupefied by her very existence. Meanwhile, he treated Chloe like a precious stick of dynamite. Seeing the three of them together—broken apart in so many ways and now shoved jaggedly back together—was unmistakably sad. Horace knew his mother could feel it, too.

Good-byes—maybe for the sake of Chloe’s dad—were said calmly, though not quite warmly, as if the incident with the harp had occurred long ago but hadn’t been totally forgotten. The only reminder was when Chloe held the raven’s eye up to Isabel, like a challenge. “This is coming with us,” she said.

Isabel’s expression didn’t change. She didn’t say a word.

Joshua shook hands again and solemnly recited thank-yous, plus a long and technically incomprehensible compliment of their atlas.

With a polite rumble, Chloe’s dad cleared his throat. “I’m ready when everyone else is,” he said.

Isabel examined Horace’s mother one last time. “I should have asked,” she said simply, and then turned to go. Joshua fell in beside her, Chloe’s father right behind.

Chloe was the last to actually leave. As she stepped over the threshold, Horace muttered under his breath, “You don’t have to go.”

“Someone has to,” she whispered back. Horace understood at once—her dad. She was looking after him again. Still. Chloe leapt lightly out the door and trotted out into the growing dusk after the others.

And then they were gone. Horace’s mother shut the door and blew out a long breath. “This is why we don’t have more people over,” she said.

“Really? This is why? How many Tuners do you know?”

Horace’s mom rubbed her face and smiled at him apologetically. “Sorry. For a while there it was like junior high all over again.” She shivered. “Chloe can handle this. She’s got her dad, and Madeline, and you.”

“And you,” Horace said, feeling a surge of warmth and pride and gratitude for his own family. His mom was so awesome that . . . well, she had mom to spare.

“Yes, and me,” she agreed. She wandered into the dining room. Horace followed. She shook her head at the table piled with uneaten food. “I can’t cope with this right now,” she said, and put her arm around him. “It’s Friday night. We gonna play chess or what?”

Horace grinned. Nothing had ever sounded better. “Okay, but fair warning. It’s going to be a rough end to a rough day. For you, I mean.”

She grinned right back, his mother as he’d always known her. “Bring it, box boy,” she said.