Later that night, Tess was sitting in the living room when she heard the front door opening. Her dad, Robert, was a dark silhouette in the entryway; the line of his shoulders was illuminated by the porch light, revealing his weariness. "Hi, Dad," she said.

"Hey, punkin," he replied, his voice low.

"You know it's, like, 9:00?" Tess laid a hand on the page of her Lit book, grateful for an excuse to take a break from The Scarlet Letter.

He stepped into the pool of light cast by Tess's reading lamp, a rueful smile on his face. "Past curfew again, am I?"

Tess twisted her mouth, watching him shut the front door, lock it, and flick off the porch light. Then she looked back down at the book. "I'm just saying. You've been at work this whole time?"

Her dad sighed, shedding his coat. "I was the lucky one on call tonight and we had two emergencies," he said. He tossed it onto the back of the couch, then slumped into his worn leather easy chair. "Anything left from dinner?"

"It was some kind of French...tarragon...something-stuff," Tess said. She didn't have to look up to see her dad's wrinkled nose. "But I'm pretty sure there's still a bag of pizza bites hidden under those weird spinach bricks in the freezer."

"Pizza rolls? and you haven't eaten them yet?"

"I am a saintly daughter," Tess said. She tried to suppress her smile.

The snort her dad gave in response suggested he was of a different opinion. He was looking at the cover of her book. "How much more Hawthorne do you have?"

"20 pages. And I've got half my Calculus assignment left."

Her dad looked over his shoulder. "Mom?"

"She watched two episodes of Grey's Anatomy and drank two glasses of wine. Sound asleep."

Tess's dad bounded out of his chair. "I'll preheat the oven and split 'em with you if you keep our secret."

Sliding off of the couch, Tess grinned. "Deal." She stuck her book under one arm, picked up her dad's coat, and took it over to hang on the coat rack by the door. Then she followed him into the kitchen. "How're things at the office?"

"You shoulda seen this kid today." He shook his head as he poked the up arrow on the oven control panel, setting the required temperature for baking pizza rolls.

If Tess ever had to confirm her dad wasn't an alien imposter from another world, she'd ask him to tell her the temp for pizza rolls. The speed and accuracy of his response would reveal in an instant whether she could trust him. He knew it by heart and had probably stopped referring to the package instructions before Tess was even born.

Her dad continued, "Poor guy. His mom was there. Didn't even come back with him. Terrible home care. Six cavities. Guess how old he was?"

"Ummm, twelve."

"Eight."

"Eight?" Tess slumped onto a stool at the breakfast bar. "Jeez."

"Yeah. But Avery—" one of her dad's technicians; Tess had gotten to know their names by now— "gave him a good cleaning and took extra time to teach him how to floss. We'll hope for the best. What about you, punkin? How was the first day?"

Tess shrugged one shoulder, tossing The Scarlet Letter onto the counter. "I'm lost in Spanish, I have two English classes, I have to read this book about Puritans, and I ate tarragon chicken for supper."

Robert, on the other side of the kitchen island, leaned on the counter, raising his brows. "Be discreet, Tess. What if she's only pretending to be asleep?"

"Whatever. I told her it was not my favorite. I'm her beta taster. She relies on me for honesty, and it is a responsibility I do not take lightly."

"Tarragon is one of those very divisive foods. Like mushrooms."

"Cilantro." Tess wrinkled her nose.

"Canned peas." Her dad mimicked her expression, adding crossed eyes for emphasis.

"Does anyone like canned peas?"

"Valid point." Tess's dad picked up The Scarlet Letter and frowned at the cover. "Did you meet any friends?"

"Well, it's just the first day. But my locker neighbor seems nice. Her name is Jacqui. And there's this guy from summer school."

He put the book down and gave Tess a probing look. "Oh?"

"Yeah. Isaac." Tess blushed. Her dad narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her, and she looked away, wondering why she was so embarrassed. Just then, the oven beeped, informing them that it was hot and ready for pizza roll madness.

"Saved by the beep," said her dad, opening the freezer and rummaging for the bag of pizza rolls. "I will refrain from putting you through an inquisition. It's just the first day of school, after all."

"Just the first day."

"And you couldn't have gotten to know him very well in summer school. You were only in class together for a few weeks."

"Yeah, and I hardly talked to anyone."

"And I'm certain he's not good-looking. Or nice."

"Total jerk."

"Good. Good. Did you tell your mother about this Isaac character?"

"This is starting to sound a little bit like the inquisition you're not putting me through." Tess laughed. "Jacqui seems really cool. She's new at school, too. She gave me a printed map and her locker is full of sticky notes and pens. I think she must be some kind of teenage genius."

"Sometimes the super-organized make life seem effortless. It's something you and I will never know, Tess. I'm afraid you got that from me. If I didn't have office assistants to keep my appointments for me, I would be completely lost."

"You don't have to tell me that, Mr. Missed-His-Own-Dentist-Appointment."

Tess's dad sighed. "I am never going to live that down."

Giggling, Tess shook her head. "Never."

The two of them exchanged a look, and then both of them were helplessly laughing, doing their best to be quiet so as not to wake Tess's mom. It was just one of those fits, those laugh-a-thons that you can't shake, no matter where you are or how inappropriate your laughter may be.

At last, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand, Robert sighed. "You know I love you, right, Tess?"

Tess's laughter dissolved. She cocked her head, her smile faltering. "Of course, Dad. That's kind of random."

"Yeah." He shrugged, breaking eye contact. "Yeah. I know."

A familiar, unwelcome sensation told Tess she was on the brink of tears. They came without warning sometimes, breaking into everyday life just as quickly and suddenly as hysterical laughter. "I miss her."

Her dad nodded. "Yeah, punkin. Me too."

Tess touched her necklace, running her fingertip along the sole of the ballet slipper. "She would have liked this stupid book. She loved things like this. She'd have told me all about it. And I could have helped her with her algebra this year."

"I think..." Robert hesitated, looking up at Tess. She caught a strange expression on his face, as if he were judging whether to be honest with her.

The weird thing about coping with life-changing loss as a teen was being in between. Tess was no longer a child, but she wasn't quite an adult yet. She certainly didn't feel grown up. At times, she felt like curling up in her father's arms or snuggling into bed with her mom and crying her eyes out. At other times—times like this—she perceived that her parents, trying to cope in their own way with their own pain, needed a shoulder to lean on more than she did.

Tess had lost a sister...but Robert and Clarette had lost a daughter. Their baby. Through all her own sorrow, Tess had come to see her parents as more than just her parents. They guarded their words sometimes and kept parts of themselves back, but Tess was glimpsing hints of the complex people they were, people who were more than Tess's mom and dad.

Robert must have decided he could trust Tess with the truth. "I think what's so hard for me is being here in Virginia. You know? I don't drive past her favorite ice cream shop. Her dance studio. The theater where we always went to watch second-run movies."

Tess nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"Moving was the right thing to do. With the way things were going to be at school, Tess...and my office staff, they treated me like I was going to break. I know we made the right decision, but that doesn't mean it isn't hard." Her dad reached across the kitchen island and lay his hand over hers. "We're going to get through this, Tess. It ain't easy. But we'll get through it."

"It's hard on Mom," Tess said, and then the tears broke through. She put a hand over her eyes, and a moment later, her dad was at her side, folding her into his arms. "I h-hate to see her cry and I know she h-hates me and I feel guilty being guilty about it—"

"Woah, woah, woah. Your mother doesn't hate you, Tess."

"She has to. How can she not? It's all my fault."

Robert's voice was rough around the edges, and Tess's stomach dropped at the sound because she realized her dad was holding back tears. "It was an accident. You did not mean for it to happen. I didn't mean for it to happen. 'What if' is never going to help us, Tess. If we let it, 'what if' is going to drive us insane. Okay? You gotta stop it. You have to."

Tess clutched at her dad's shirt, resting her forehead against him as he laid his cheek against her hair. He smelled like his sterile office, like the weird tooth paste the technicians used to clean patients' teeth. She allowed the unsteady rise and fall of his chest to lull her until her tears stopped.

The timer on the oven beeped, breaking into their shared moment of grief. By then, Tess felt sluggish from crying and half-asleep from her dad's comforting embrace. He pulled away from her, taking her by the shoulders.

"You going to be okay?" he asked her.

"Are you?"

He shook his head. "We can be not okay together."

"Deal." Tess scrubbed at her cheek with her sleeve. She slid off of her chair and crossed to the oven, then bent down to take out the pizza rolls with a garish polka-dot pot holder. She set the pan on the stove and stood there staring at the rolls. Some of them had burst, oozing white cheese and red sauce onto the hot pan.

As the clock ticked past 10:00 PM, Tess and her dad stood barefoot in the kitchen, half-heartedly sharing their late-night snack, although neither of them had an appetite any more. Then, Tess retired to her room to finish her homework.

By the time she turned off her lamp, it was 12:55 AM.