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Cole was eating leftover pasta salad—Aunt Margaret specialized in main-dish salads in which she substituted fresh mozzarella cheese for whatever meat the salad called for. Cole was eating it like he had just discovered food. Still, he took a moment to swallow and then answer. “I’m sure if he’d had it to do over, he’d have skipped that White House meeting.”
Mark and Nick were still up, sitting at the entrance of the hall, where they probably hoped not to be noticed by the adults in the kitchen, because if they were noticed they would doubtless be sent to bed. But Mark couldn’t help laughing, as much because of the way Cole said it right after swallowing and with a forkful of salad still in midair.
Cessy turned on them. “Bed,” she said.
“I didn’t laugh,” said Nick.
“I’m not sending you to bed for laughing,” said Cessy.
“She’s sending you to bed because you’re young,” said Cole. “Being young is an eighteen-year prison sentence for a crime your parents committed. But you do get time off for good behavior.”
Nick did laugh at that—Mark just looked at him like he was weird. But they obeyed and left the room.
“Thanks for subverting our parental discipline,” said Reuben to Cole.
“They’re just going to listen from the door of their room,” said Cole.
“They’re obedient children,” said Cessy.
“Big and terrible things are happening in the world,” said Cole. “If you were a kid, would you really be so obedient you wouldn’t sneak a way to listen to what the grownups are trying to protect you from knowing about?”
“No,” said Cessy. “But I’m not a kid, I’m a mother, and I don’t want them to know.”
“You don’t think it’ll scare them worse not to know what’s going on?” asked Cole.
“People without children always know how to raise them better than their parents do,” said Aunt Margaret. “I speak from experience. I never had kids of my own.”
“None of my business,” said Cole. “Really good salad.”
Reuben looked at Cessy. “We trust Mark not to tell his friends I’m here, and that’s the only secret that has bad consequences if they tell it.”
“I don’t want them to be frightened,” said Cessy.
“I don’t want them to be frightened either,” said Reuben. “So let’s let them come back in.”
“You’re not the one who wakes up with their nightmares.”
“Is that a no?”
“That’s a vote. You have the other vote.”
“Is that permission?” asked Reuben.
“Grudging permission, full of possible I-told-you-sos.”
“Good enough for me.” Then, without raising his voice even a bit, he said, “All right, boys, you can come back.”
The scampering of feet began instantly.
Cole grinned, with flecks of basil on his teeth and lips. Cessy handed him a napkin.
“See,” said Cole, “when I go home, my parents still send me out of the room when they discuss things.”
“You’re the baby of the family?”
“Yep,” said Cole. “They still call me Barty.” And before Reuben could call him by that name, Cole raised a hand. “They’re the only people alive who call me that.”
With the boys back in the hallway and Aunt Margaret stirring fresh raspberries into the soft homemade ice cream she had in the freezer, they got down to business.
