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“There’s nothing to tell. It’s not like we’re having sex.”

“Good. I wasn’t asking that, but good.”

“I have to go. Jason’s waiting for me.” I wanted to peer at them out the window, but she would’ve been really mad if she saw me, so I rose up on the tips of my toes and tried to look out one of the panes of glass at the top of our front door. Damn, I was too short. I jumped up and down like a flea trying to land on a dog, but I couldn’t get a good look. At least now I could skip my jumping jacks this morning.

“Did you see what Gia’s doing with Jason?” Jim asked as he came down the stairs.

“No, I’m too short.”

“They were making out in front of the house,” he said. Why didn’t I think of running upstairs and looking out that window?

Wait, now he’s concerned about Gia and Jason? I was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me uncomfortable. “How about some breakfast?” I asked.

“It’s not okay for her to do that in front of the whole neighborhood,” he said.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I opened the refrigerator and started throwing the entire slab of bacon into the frying pan, as if we were feeding every kid on the block. I cracked five eggs into a bowl, added milk and cheese, and began to whisk them. I was whisking them so hard that little drops of egg were spraying onto the floor. Theo was delighted as he licked up every drop.

A car peeled out, and Gia came back in the house. She sat down at the table as if it were any other Sunday morning and poured orange juice into her glass. Neither Jim nor I said anything, as neither of us wanted to get into it with her, but the quiet at the table was louder than Theo’s slurping.

“What?” she asked off our stares.

“Your boyfriend just drove over here to make out with you for five minutes?” Jim said.

“So?”

“So, you shouldn’t be making out in front of our house,” Jim said.

“It’s no big deal, Dad,” Gia said, picking up a slice of bacon off the platter.

“Maggie, do you have something to add?” he asked pointedly.

“No.” I didn’t want to be the bad guy again.

“See, Mom agrees with me,” Gia said.

Jim gave me thatwhy aren’t you backing me uplook. I finished the eggs, and we had our usual Sunday breakfast, Jim reading the newspaper while Gia watched a bunch of cat videos on her laptop. I knew what she was watching because she described every one of them in excruciating detail. Who knew cats could be so scared of cucumbers? Before I had eaten my eggs, Gia reached for the last slice of bacon and said her friend Taylor would be picking her up in ten minutes to go to the mall. She ran off to get ready.

“Why didn’t you jump in when I was talking to her?” Jim asked.

“Two days ago, you said I was overreacting, and we should let her live her own life.”

“I was talking about going to a movie, not making out in front of our house.”

This conversation was starting to pick up steam, and Ellen was coming over to go for a walk, so I agreed to talk to Gia later, knowing I probably wouldn’t.

I had just finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes when the doorbell rang. Ellen was wearing white sweatpants, a long-sleeved white shirt, a down vest, and a fire-engine-red puffy jacket. She looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man on fire. “You ready to go?” she asked.

I grabbed my jacket and gloves, and we headed out. It hadn’t snowed for a few days, but it was still bitter cold, and two feet of dirty snow were piled up next to the road. The air was icy, and when I took a deep breath, my lungs hurt.

“It’s so freaking cold out here. Why are you making me do this?” I asked.

“You said you wanted to start getting into shape.”

“Yeah, in a warm gym.” I put my hands in my pockets because even with gloves on, my fingers were stinging.

“You know I don’t like to walk alone,” Ellen said. “Besides, we wouldn’t be shivering this much in the gym. We have to be burning twice as many calories.”

We walked fast enough to get our heart rate into the fat-burning zone, but we couldn’t talk and keep up that pace. Both of us were out of shape. As we slowed down, beads of sweat were settling on my skin.