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Simon takes the receipt from Oliver. They stand beneath Nathaniel’s faded face and argue over whether eighty-seven cents justifies another ten minutes in the store.

Jamie puts his hand in mine. I guide them outside.

Juney’s car is parked across the lot. She chose a space beneath a tree with a clear view of the entrance. Her window is down, and one hand rests against her mouth while she watches Oliver.

I would have selected a position closer to the exit. Juney still has things to learn.

Oliver sees her before we reach the car.

Juney lowers her hand.

I unlock the car.

Jamie reaches the passenger side first, then stops. He looks at Oliver. “You can sit in front if you want.”

“No.” Oliver opens the door and holds it while Jamie climbs inside with the flowers. “You’ve spent months complaining about your outing. I’m not listening to you complain about the seating arrangement too.”

Jamie settles into the front passenger seat. Simon loads the groceries into the trunk. He puts the cream and strawberries near the back, then wedges the party supplies between them.

Oliver returns the cart. Juney remains in her car while he crosses the parking lot alone. He brings the cart to the return and walks back to me.

Juney doesn’t start her car. Oliver watches her in the side mirror until the lot shrinks behind us and her windshield is only a bright square under the tree. She doesn’t need to follow. She knows where we live.

Oliver turns around in his seat and faces forward.

Jamie holds a flamingo umbrella between two fingers and turns toward the back seat. “Do you think these are too much?”

“Yes,” Simon and Oliver say together.

Jamie tucks one in my purse.

Once we get home, Simon carries the groceries directly to the kitchen. Oliver takes the party supplies, and Jamie refuses to put down the flowers until I tell him where they belong.

I bring him into the playroom.

The dollhouse waits with every light on. I’ve added a small garden to the table beneath it. Six blue hydrangeas line one side, each made from wire and painted paper. Three red rose bushes stand opposite them. A raised bed filled with tiny green plants covers the empty space between.

Jamie kneels in front of it. “You made Simon’s garden.”

“I made my garden.”

Simon calls from the kitchen. “She doesn’t know what half those plants are.”

“I know which ones are poisonous.”

“That isn’t the same fucking thing.”

Jamie sets the tray of alyssum beside the miniature garden. The real flowers are too large, but the smallest blossoms will work if I dry them first.

He opens the blue room. The wallpaper has faded beside the little lamp. One corner of the rug is permanently bent where he keeps moving the vanity, and the bed no longer sits squarely against the wall because he changes it so often.

The green room is neater. Oliver leaves his miniature in the reading chair during the day and returns him to the bed before we sleep. Tiny books now fill the shelf and sit in uneven stacks beside the chair. He objected when I bought him duplicates of books he already had. He arranged them anyway.

The red room no longer looks new. The sharp folds have vanished from the bedspread. A tiny apron hangs from the wardrobe. Jamie made it from a piece of the real one, and Simon called it ridiculous before telling him the ties were too long.

The next morning, they were shorter.

I take the Jamie doll from beneath the tiny tree where he left it yesterday. I put him into the garden chair nearest the center. Jamie watches me position him.