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They sat together at the coffee table for a few moments longer, Annie doubled over onto her lap, her face in her hands, and Helen next to her, her hand a steady tether on her spine.

A cry from the baby monitor in the kitchen broke through the quiet.

“That baby has been sleeping like shit.” Helen’s frustration broke through the soothing tone. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Where would Annie go? She’d really dug herself into it now. There was being mysterious and self-sufficient, and then there was this—disappearing and coming home in tears. She’d have to tell Helen something. But what?

She wiped her eyes and her snotty nose with the damp cloth, then tipped her head back and let the air dry her face. She heardZach fussing, heard Helen shush him in the same way she’d soothed Annie—a comforting hiss like a slow leak. She brought him downstairs. His cheeks were wet and rosy. He looked around the bright living room as if it were a foreign planet, so different from the dark bedroom he shared with his foster mother.

It made sense now why Helen had shoved a crib into her own room instead of doubling up the boys. Zach was temporary.

“I’ll hold him while you make a bottle,” Annie offered.

“All right.”

She sat Zach in her lap, his back to her front, and wrapped her arm around his middle. He leaned back against her, looking around. When he started to squirm, she bounced her knees up and down, and he settled down with a giggle.

Helen returned with a wooden tray holding a bottle of formula and two mugs of hot chocolate. “Let’s go upstairs,” she said.

It felt good to just do as Helen suggested. They crept past the cracked doors of the kids’ rooms. Helen set the tray on her nightstand, then closed her door.

Annie put Zach down in the center of the big bed, and Helen handed him a bottle. He could hold it himself now. He slurped at it hungrily until his mouth made a seal around the nipple. As his tummy filled with warm formula, his eyelids drooped.

They sat on the bed between Zach and the nightstand. Helen handed Annie a mug. They sipped quietly for a moment, savoring the warmth of the chocolate.

“You’re an adult,” Helen said.

“Yes.”

“I’m not your mother. I don’t think of myself as your mother.”

“Definitely not,” Annie agreed. “You are not remotely like her.”

“But I do feel like I should say something since we’re friendly and you are living here with my family.”

Annie’s stomach bottomed out, but she nodded, curling the fingers of her free hand into the comforter. She would accept whatever Helen decided. She would make it work somehow.

“I don’t want you doing something that makes you so unhappy. I don’t want you doing something dangerous, Annie.” Helen gave her a pained smile. “This job of yours—”

“I’m thinking of dropping out of school!” Annie blurted out.

At Christmastime, when she and her brother were little, her father used to read them the Dr. Seuss book about the mean old monster who lived on top of a mountain, who stole Christmas away in the night. The little kids wake up the next morning, happy anyway, and singing their song. Annie hadn’t thought about the Grinch in years, but she remembered that the Grinch was able to come up with a lie quickly because he was so sly.

She remembered it because whenever her daddy read the story, he looked over the rims of his glasses at Annie, his chronic fibber. Annie, who could spin a twisted tale in seconds rather than admit she did something wrong. Annie, who threw her brother under the bus if she saw one coming her way.

The lie spilled out before her brain could process it.

“You are?” Helen asked.

“It may be too much for me.” Annie shook her head. “I don’t even know why I thought it was a good idea to go back to school. I already have a master’s degree.”

“I spoke to Greg just last week, and he said your paper was one of the best he’s ever seen. He said you speak very eloquently in class.”

“You talk about me?”

“All teachers talk about their students,” Helen admitted. “The bad ones mostly, yes, though the good ones too.”

But the truth was, while there were difficult aspects to her classes, it wasn’t hard for her. Most of the subject matter being taught she already knew from experience. In class, she only halflistened to lectures, thinking more about how tired she was, about the next time her pager would go off. She stayed on top of the reading, so the lectures were often superfluous. It was as if the whole system was designed for people who weren’t going to do their homework.