Something was shifting in me. I woke up in the mornings and actually looked forward to the day. It was such a new feeling that I sometimes thought I’d spontaneously combust, and all that would be left of me was a small pile of ashes next to a smoldering cat hat.

Jacob and I spent a lot of time together. We weren’t disgustingly inseparable at school, like Pablo and Carrie, who tongued and groped each other even on their groinage area and looked like conjoined twins when they walked down the halls. But we hung out, a lot. We talked, a lot.

We made out, a lot.

I finished Jacob’s dog hat, and it spurred me to do more. I knit animal toques for everyone in YART: a monkey for Ivan, a rabbit for Alonzo, and a bear for Betty. For Koula, I made a raccoon headband-style ear warmer so it wouldn’t mess up her Mohawk. “That is so dorky,” she said when I gave it to her. But she wore it. Every day.

I also made a T-shirt tote bag for Rachel. The two of us had taken baby steps; she’d even invited me to eat lunch in the cafeteria with her and Aleisha and Mahshid a couple of times. But that was about it.

I still missed her, a lot.

One day Mr. Watley stopped me in the hall. “Petula. How are you doing?”

“Fine. Why?”

“I haven’t seen you in my office in weeks.”

“Wow. You’re right.”

“So things are good?”

I nodded. “You’ll never guess what I did last week.”

“What?”

“Ate a hamburger.”

“Good for you.”

“And I crossed on a red light. At a very, very quiet intersection in a residential neighborhood.”

“Goodness! Next you’ll be telling me you drank out of a water fountain.”

“Let’s not go overboard, sir.”

“I’m glad to hear you’re doing well.” Mr. Watley gazed at me with his big, watery eyes, and I wondered if he missed me.

“I’m happy to drop by your office once in a while if you’d like,” I said. “I could even come by today, at lunch—”

“No, no, no need. Just pleased to know you’re doing well.” He hurried away, like he’d just farted and didn’t want to be around to take the blame when it started to smell.

—

My mom noticed changes in me, too.

We were eating homemade pizza in front of the TV one night, just the eight of us—two humans, six cats. “So,” she said out of the blue, “tell me about you and Jacob.”

“What about me and Jacob?”

“Are you two going steady?”

“Mom, nobody says that anymore.”

“You know what I mean.”

I shrugged. “I guess we are.”

“Well, I’m glad. I like him.”

I turned my attention back to the TV.

“If you ever need to talk about anything—”

“Thanks. I’m good.”

“For example, protection and birth control—”

“Mom!”

“I’m just saying, if it ever comes to that, you want to double up, condoms and the pill, no unwanted pregnancies, no STDs—”

I upped the volume by ten.

But here’s the thing. Since Maxine’s death, we hadn’t had a lot of genuine mother-daughter conversations.

So even though I’d drowned her out, I was still deeply touched.

She was acting like my mom again.