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“Do you not like her?” asked Alice.

Hope exhaled but didn’t say anything.

“She’s really nice,” Alice added helpfully. “I like her. She’s quite funny, you know, even if she looks a bit serious. She likes eating only the jam part of the bread and she cuts all the crusts off. I told her she wouldn’t have curly hair like mine if she didn’t eat the crusts, so now she eats them though.”

“Right,” Hope said, unlocking the car and helping Alice in.

“And she doesn’t mind if I cry in the night. It only happened once, but she wasn’t cross or anything. She said it was alright to sleep in bed with daddy and then she went to sleep in my bed. So that was nice, wasn’t it?”

“Mmm,” said Hope, checking Alice’s safety harness.

“I think that you would like her if you’d stayed at their house too,” Alice went on. “You know that Nathan said that when he goes to his dad’s he’s allowed to eat all the sweets he wants and he doesn’t have a bedtime. But my dad’s not like that. There’s no sweets except on Saturdays and my bedtime is the same like when I’m with you.”

“I see,” Hope said as she got into her own seat and closed the door.

Alice was quiet for a minute. “I like going to dad’s and Amelia’s,” she said quietly. “I like going to yours and gran’s though as well.” She sniffed. “I don’t have a favorite.”

“You don’t?” Hope couldn’t help but ask as she looked into the rearview mirror at her serious daughter.

“Nope,” Alice said firmly.

Hope sighed. She really didn’t want to think about this now, didn’t want to talk about it, especially with Alice, who was getting smarter and more observant by the day.

“Want to know a secret?” Hope said, anxious to deflect Alice’s thoughts from her father.

“Yes!”

“Someone’s coming to dinner tomorrow night, so you’re going to have to be on your best behavior.” She started the engine and put the car into gear.

“Who? Who? Who?” chirped Alice like a little owl.

Hope laughed. “Ms. Stanford is coming.”

“Hurray!” Alice shouted and Hope laughed even louder. She’d been right to invite Ava. Whatever the future held, Alice deserved to know what was going on, at least to some extent.

Chapter Twenty Seven

“Behave yourself,” Hope said.

“Oh, come on,” said Caz. “Alice is a big girl now, and her table manners are really coming along.”

“I wasn’t talking to Alice,” said Hope, shooting her mother a look.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s supposed to mean that the first time Noah came over for dinner you grilled him on his career prospects and almost made him cry,” said Hope.

“Well, I won’t do that.” Caz sniffed. “She’s already got a job, I’m more than clear on Ava’s career prospects.”

Hope’s lips tweaked into a smile. “Careful calling her Ava in front of Alice.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Caz. “I’m going to be a good girl, don’t worry.” She had been chopping tomatoes for salad, but she paused now and looked at her daughter. “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?”

“Got what bad?” asked Hope, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she arranged slices of garlic bread to go into the oven.

Caz snorted. “You know exactly what I mean, young lady. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t come home until the wee hours of the morning the other night.”

“I’m not the only one,” Hope protested. “When are we going to get to see your fancy man?”