AUNT ELISE AND I LAID LOW ON MONDAY. SHE TAUGHT ME some yoga moves. Given her leg situation, she had a modified yoga program. She could sit in a chair and do upper-body work. I followed along, rolling my shoulders, bending from side to side, stretching my back. “Now close your eyes,” Aunt Elise said. “Pay attention to your breath. Inhale through your nose. That’s it. Exhale slowly through your mouth . . . good. Inhale again, slowly. You can lengthen the inhale by counting to three in your head. Now exhale to the count of three. One. Two. Three. Good.”
Later on, I called Juno to see how her first day at the Hogans’ was going. We’d texted a little bit before then. Juno had written that all’s swell, but when she picked up the phone, it sounded like she was in the middle of a zoo, or maybe the aftermath of an explosion.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Totally under control. Don’t you worry,” she said. In the background, someone was making siren noises, and someone else screamed.
“You sure about that ‘under control’ thing?”
“Ha, ha,” she said. “The things I do for you. I’m only in this mess because you said you’d be here with me.”
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“I’m sorry about that stupid guilt trip I just pulled,” she said. “It’s only five more days.”
“Four and a half,” I said.
“The good news is these kids totally distract me from thinking too much about Cooper. Although I still think about him, and what he and Audrey may be doing together right about now . . .”
“Ugh, Juno. Don’t even go there.”
“I can’t help it. I was just thinking that—” She cut herself off. “Oh, God.”
“What?”
“Something crashed,” she said. She started panting and I could tell she was racing back to the other room. “I shouldn’t have left them alone. But they’re eight years old. They should be able to stay alive without me for five minutes.”
In the background, the kids started screaming. Screaming never bodes very well. Then again, if you’re screaming, you’re definitely alive.
“What’s going on in here?” I heard Juno ask, and then there was the chatter of all three kids answering at the same time.
In the harshest voice I’d ever heard her use, Juno said, “That’s enough! No killing! Are you listening to me? Everyone be quiet and listen. No killing is a rule in this house!”
There were mumbles, and I imagined the kids reluctantly assenting to the no-killing rule.
“I’ll tell you something else,” Juno went on. “I am on the phone with Sloane—”
“HI, SLOANE!”
“No, don’t say hi yet,” Juno said. “Sloane just heard you through the phone trying to kill each other.”
“I wasn’t—”
Juno cut off whatever kid was talking (it was one of the boys—either Thomas or Theo). “I’m going to set a timer for five minutes. If you can be quiet and sit with your craft books for that long, then you can say hi to her. Sloane, you still there?”
“I’m still here. I’m amazed that you’re actually setting rules. I thought your family didn’t believe in them.”
“We believe in implicit rules,” she explained. “My mom never had to tell me not to defenestrate Eddy.”
“Way to use an SAT word in a sentence,” I said.
“Yeah, well, that’s what was just happening here. The boys were trying to shove Melanie out the window. We’re on the ground floor, but still.”
“You probably shouldn’t leave them alone again,” I said.
“Oh, I’m not. I’m standing window guard while they’re crafting. They can talk to you in . . . oh, four minutes and twelve seconds. If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Good, because this is the first time they’ve been quiet all day—because I dangled the reward of talking to you. They love you so much. They can’t wait till you’re back.”
“Maybe I should come back early,” I said.
“Really? I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”
“I’m not kidding,” I said. “At least I don’t think I am. I don’t want to hurt my aunt’s feelings. Then again, it’s hard to have a houseguest when you’re not feeling like yourself, so maybe she actually wants me to leave, she’s just too polite to say so.”
“I doubt that she wants you to leave,” Juno said.
“Yeah, me too,” I admitted. “It’s just so hard. I realized something about Talley last night, and I’ve been trying to figure out what it means.”
“Has it been five minutes?” came a shout.
“It’s been three minutes and four seconds,” Juno said. “But if you start fighting again, I reset the clock. Sorry, Sloane. You were saying?”
“I think the list was . . . oh, I don’t know what it was. But it got me out here, and I met my aunt, and where the rest of it is concerned, I just feel like there’s nothing left for me to do in California, and it’s making me miss Talley even more. I want to come home. My dad will be disappointed in me for leaving Stanford, but I’m not even at Stanford, so that shouldn’t be the deciding factor.”
“You give the word and I’ll switch your ticket,” Juno said.
“Is it expensive to switch a ticket?”
“Oh, Sloane, you know I don’t care about that. Maybe I’ll even upgrade you to first class on the way home.”
“No!” I said. “Promise me you won’t do that.”
“What was that? I can’t hear you.”
“Juno, please. I mean it. That would make me insanely uncomfortable.”
“All right,” she said. “No first class. But even if it costs something to switch the ticket, don’t worry about it. I checked my credit card statement online this morning, and you haven’t spent anything.”
“I’ve only been here three days.”
“People can spend a lot of money in three days. I thought the purpose of this trip was to indulge yourself.”
“You know that wasn’t the purpose.”
“I know. I just want to make things as easy on you as possible, even if you don’t let me upgrade you to first class. Maybe business . . .”
“Not a chance,” I said. “But I am going to think about coming home early, if that’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay.”
“Thanks, Ju. I’ll call you back in a bit.”
“It’s been more than five minutes!” one of the boys called. “I watched the clock!”
“Oh, sorry, kiddo. Sloane can’t talk right now,” Juno said.
“Sure I can,” I told her. “Put them on.”