Chapter One

Mom says, "Now this is how it's supposed to be." She smiles her sparkly smile and looks around the breakfast table at all of us while the breeze off the lake comes through the screens and the red squirrels chitter in the oak trees. Our living and dining room are one big square with golden knotty-pine paneling and a high-beamed ceiling. Dad built it that way. Then he nailed deer heads and rifle racks to the walls and named it Jack's Hunting Lodge. But Mom put a sign out by the road with just our name next to a mallard hen: ANDERSON.

Randy always sits next to me. I kick his bare foot and nod at Dad who's jabbing his sliced bananas with his fork, click-click, click-click against the Melmac bowl. Randy raises his sun-bleached eyebrows at me, which means just let it go, but Mitzy jumps to her feet, points her skinny finger in Dad's face and says, "Mom says it sets her teeth on edge when you do that." I'll be eight this month, Mitzy's nearly ten and Randy's twelve. Mom looks at Dad. She's biting the tip of her tongue with her tiny white teeth. Dad pokes his bananas faster, like some mad guy knocking on our door, so she goes back to peeling her orange in one long strip using just her thumbnail. Without looking up, she laughs once, and says real loud, "Sure do love all of you."

Randy says, "Love you, Mom."

Mitzy says, "Love you."

I say, "Love you."

Dad rattles his coffee cup on the saucer for a refill, not saying a word even though we're all looking at him. When his upper lip flattens out, we stop looking. Then Mom stands up so fast her chair falls over backward. Her head's turning this way and th