Page 41 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

Wren, who comes out shouting, “Dumpling!”

And Harper, who yells, “Toast!”

My mother shakes her head, telling the girls to be quiet, while I hug each of my baby sisters and reply solemnly, “Dumpling. Butter and jam.”

Lucas gives me a look, and I try to hold an entire conversation with my eyes—that my sisters each have their own way of saying they love me, that it’s so convoluted I couldn’t explain its origins if I tried.

And I have tried.

Lucas’s eyebrows furrow, and I don’t have time to follow up because we’re being pulled through to the living room just as Aurora comes into the room. She’s just turned ten, and when her head dips down, her glasses slide down and almost off.

I sigh, silently, because Aurora’s lack of a nose bridge means she really shouldn’t have chosen such blocky frames. But they were on sale, and Aurora, at barely ten, is almost hyperaware of our financial situation.

“I’m Aurora.”

Lucas crouches down and touches his own frames. “Lucas. And it seems as though we have the same taste in eyewear.” I’m not sure why this elicits a smile . . . but it does. “I’m here to help Lorelai with chores—I’m guessing you’re the one who can point me in the right direction?”

This, too, is the exact right thing to have said. Lucas holds his hand out, and Aurora puts her hand in his, leading him to the dining table. “Lorelai likes to start by checking in on our academic progress, and I always have our work ready, including which workbooks Harper and Wren are working on, before she arrives. Also, today is haircut day, so I have everything prepared.”

Lucas sits down, nodding at the books and workbooks I’ve gotten on sale, at the paper bags we’ll be spreading down later, when I cut each of my little sisters’ hair. He takes it all in stride as if this is perfectly normal. The younger girls cling to me, still talking over each other. As I sit with Harper on my lap and Wren in the chair next to me, I can’t help but look at the bare walls of our two-bedroom apartment, to notice all the ways our home lacks the immediate warmth of Lucas’s home.

When we downsized, we (of course) told ourselves it was temporary.

Who wants to put holes into a wall hanging pictures or posters when it’s all temporary?

But it’s been four years now, and even if we’ll never be the selfie-adventure family Lucas seems to have, we have the girls’ artwork, the awards Aurora has already begun to win.

I squeeze the younger girls to me, trying to keep my voice light as I ask them to show me what they’ve been up to.

We can do better.

I can do better.

Lucas doesn’t just make the chores faster . . . he makes them into a game.

He whispers to me that I’m babying Wren and Harper before eyeing them and asking if they want to be treated like . . . babies. This is enough to goad the toddlers into declaring that they are absolutely capable of making their own beds and learning about dirty vs. clean laundry piles. Lucas turns cleaning the room into a competition, promising whoever wins gets to choose the bedtime story. Then, he employs a variety of comedic voices so successfully that they are begging him to come back. This allows me to finish cleaning up dinner and do the advanced lunch-packing, frozen-dinner, crockpot-meal planning for the week in record time. After the youngest girls are asleep, instead of helping our neighbor collect quotes to fix her stove (something I’d promised to do, given how many times I’ve relied on her to watch the girls), Lucas actually fixes her stove, changes a couple of lightbulbs, and even unjams her kitchen drawer. I can tell (even before my neighbor pulls me aside to squeeze my arm) that he’s converted her to Team Lucas.

Then, Lucas not only thoroughly checks Aurora’s homework—racing with her on the suggested extra problems she hadn’t attempted—he pulls out his laptop and teaches her some introductory coding before (upon learning she’s never built one before) helping her construct an elaborate pillow fort that covers all the space from front door to kitchen.

My mother is the only one who remains unimpressed. She whispers to me, in pointed Mandarin, that his clothes look plain, cheap, and used, that he didn’t know enough etiquette to bring an introductory gift, and then she switches to English to comment about the mess Lucas and Aurora are making.

“You will make sure she cleans this up?”

“Of course.” Lucas’s smile is polite. He waits until my mother has gone to her bedroom, closing the door quite firmly, before he gazes down at the chastened Aurora.

“I wanted to keep it up for Wren and Harper.”

“You can teach them to build one later.” He nods his head in my direction. “I bet your older sister’s never even tried.”

“I missed that part of my education.” I look at the assorted cushions and bedsheets, hating that a small part of me had also, already, been thinking about the cleanup. “But it looks . . . nice.”

“It is magnificent,” Lucas corrects, grinning down at a smitten Aurora, even while my brain mentally disagrees with the idea that an eclectic, barely balanced collection of sheets and cushions can be magnificent. Looking over and catching my gaze, Lucas must read my mind because his face splits into that crooked grin again before his eyes return to my sister. “I bet you’re the fun one in this family.”

And Aurora—who is very much not the fun one, who is (in fact) just as anxious as I am, but usually with an additional dose of super-shy—beams, her face splitting into a huge, positively mischievous grin. “I am the fun one. Mother’s always telling Lorelai to lighten up.”

I don’t react.

Why would I?