‘Fine.’

It was a lie, but so what? She didn’t even know why she came to these check-ins. She saw plenty of Alice, to say the least, and Shane . . . It took more than a rushed espresso to get below the surface with her, and she was always on her way somewhere anyway. And yet, as she stared at the rubble from her pancake stack, she could hear her mothers’ voices telling her, like bizarro gay godfathers, not to go against the framily. 

‘Busy,’ she added. ‘Not getting much reading done.’

Her eyes cut in Alice’s direction.

‘What?’ said Alice.

‘Just, you were playing music at two a.m.?’ 

‘Oh. Yeah, I’m not sleeping.’ Alice looked at Shane. ‘Meds.’

‘And?’ said Angie, staring at her.

‘You don’t like Carole King?’ Still the stare. ‘Was it the harmonies?’ 

‘You doing something adult today?’ Shane asked Alice.

‘Therapy, yoga, bingo. That’s three separate activities, not checking numbers and talking about Nat with my knees behind my head.’

Shane smiled. Angie pushed a scrap of pancake around her plate until a collective ‘Aahhh’ made her look up.

‘Heyyyyy, who’s this?’ Dani said, coming to the table holding her son’s wrist and waving his little hand at everyone.

‘Hey, Artie . . .’

‘Hey, kiddo . . .’

‘Good morning, tiny person!’

Angie took Dani’s bag and helped her get settled. Joan Didion growled at the upstager as Shane leaned in and played with Artie’s foot. He was eight months old, with jet-black hair and the same broad face and deep-set eyes as his mother. 

‘He’s got bigger,’ Shane said.

‘Yeah, they do that,’ Dani sighed, loosening the straps on her BabyBjorn. ‘I can’t stay long. I’ve gotta stop by Lark’s and get down the road by lunch.’

‘The vineyard?’ Alice asked.

‘Uh-huh. Wanna come?’

‘I wish. I’m still on a daily with Doctor Weiss.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m fine.’ Alice shrugged, tried to smile, then teared up, laughed and tried the smile again. It came off unhinged. ‘I’m fine,’ she said again.

‘You are,’ said Shane. ‘We’ll do something tonight, okay?’

‘’Kay.’

‘At your place?’ Angie asked Shane, sotto voce.

‘Sure. In fact,’ she said to Alice, ‘whyn’t you just stay for a while? I got this thing at the vineyard on the weekend, but apart from that we can just, y’know, hang out.’