Harriet, Vicky, and Patricia sat clustered around a blindingly yellow table in the mall, munching on hot, buttery pretzels while their kids ran amok.

"For crying out loud, Logan," Patricia hollered, "this place is enough of a pigsty without you throwing salt everywhere!"

Vicky tittered as the boy scattered the grains he'd gathered with one final throw before clamoring on top of one of the chairs and shooting balled-up napkins at a trashcan halfway across the food court. "Are you sure that's your kid?" Vicky asked. "The day you start acting that wild is the day unicorns start prancing on the moon."

Patricia massaged her temples. "Sometimes I think he's half wolverine and half tornado, with a pinch of hummingbird mixed in."

"Meanwhile, Sam is one hundred percent dinosaur," Harriet said.

The kid in question was sprinting after Ollie and attempting to growl while the other boy shrieked with laughter.

"Bet he dressed up as one for Halloween, yeah?" Vicky took a bite of her pretzel. "Mine decided to go as a zombie. He already acts the part every morning, so it wasn't much of a stretch. Took forever to put all that face paint on though."

"Speaking of Halloween," Patricia said, "how was yours? Is your dad holding up okay?"

Harriet fought to swallow a salty lump of bread. "His breathing's getting worse. Now that the cold weather's creeping its way back, I can only imagine how miserable he must feel."

"I can imagine." Patricia passed her a wad of napkins.

Harriet dabbed her eyes gratefully. "We did get to bake though, so there's that. Even mom liked the cupcakes."

"I take it there aren't any left?" Vicky said with a pout. "We keep missing out."

"Nah, I brought you guys something else." Harriet checked to make sure the kids were preoccupied before pulling a bag full of snickerdoodles out of her purse.

"Now we're talking!" Vicky crammed a cookie into her mouth, sending a spray of cinnamon across the table. "Carol had better watch out, or you'll run her out of business."

"Priorities," Patricia muttered. She gave Harriet a questioning look. "Where have you been finding the time to make all this?"

Harriet narrowed her eyes. Who was she to question why she'd been baking so much? It was one of the only things that made her happy these days, yet she couldn't even bring it up without getting interrogated. The dull throbbing in her forehead told her it had been way too long since the last time she'd baked as it was. She hadn't even spent a minute in the kitchen since breakfast.

"I make time," she said stiffly. She stirred her lemonade with her straw as if she was whisking cake batter. "We've gotta do whatever makes us happy, right?"

"Can't argue with that." Patricia raised a snickerdoodle. "To being happy."

"To being happy!"

The kids were more than onboard with that declaration. "Mom, can we go to Wonder World now?" Sam asked.

Harriet barely had time to say yes and gulp the last of her lemonade before Sam dragged her toward the toy store, leaving the other moms to wrangle their kids.

To children, Wonder World was a place full of magic and whimsy. Life-sized stuffed lions welcomed them to the Zoo Zone, and block towers tall enough to scrape the ceiling beckoned the construction-inclined kids into Builderberg. The corny catchphrases and flashing lights blaring from countless gadgets were a siren song to anyone under the age of ten.

To adults, Wonder World brought nothing but empty wallets and pounding migraines. Harriet massaged her temples as a barrage of high-pitched screeches assaulted her ears. "Half an hour, then we get out of here. I don't think I could stand even one extra minute."

"I'll check out the tech," Vicky hollered over the ruckus as her high heels clacked past kids clustered around the latest and greatest virtual pets.

"And I'll handle the Legos," Patricia said. "You focusing on the stuffed animals and action figures?"

"As always." Harriet gave her a mock salute. "Good luck out there."

With Sam leading the way, Harriet marched off toward the section of the Zoo Zone where dinosaur roars blasted from the speakers. Plastic vines dangled from the ceiling to drape themselves around rows upon rows of dinosaur toys. Sam ran his fingers over their scaly snouts, tensing whenever his skin brushed against their teeth.

"They won't bite," Harriet said as she noted which toys were dominating his attention. Looks like it was a toss-up between the archaeopteryx with a crest of brilliantly blue feathers and the parasaurolophus that let out an ear-grating bugling noise whenever Sam tilted its head back. Harriet winced as the sound blasted from the dinosaur yet again. Indoor voices must not have been a thing back then. She'd take the prehistoric chicken over that glorified trumpet any day.

"Duh," Sam said with an eye roll. "They're asleep. That one sounds like dad when he snores."

And again with the bugling, this time with Sam's laughter ricocheting through the store. The noise melded together with the screaming, beeping, and blaring chaos of Wonder World until the tsunami of sounds sent a migraine hammering through Harriet's head. She squeezed her eyes shut with a wince. "For the love of God, could you just shut up for five minutes?"

Harriet's hands flew to her mouth. She hadn't said that out loud, had she?

Sam's reaction was immediate. His lip quivered as tears and snot flew down his reddening face. "I wanna go home!" he screamed as he made a mad dash out of the Zoo Zone.

Heat rushed to Harriet's face as other parents glared at her while their kids clung to their legs, desperate to avoid being screamed at themselves. She breathed out a quick apology before running off in search of Sam.

He couldn't have gotten far, yet there was no sign of him anywhere. No sobbing, no sniffles, nothing. "Sam?"

She scrambled over to the tech section where Vicky was having a little too much fun testing out the robot dog they had on display. "Look at this," her friend said as she mashed the remote tethered to the demo dog's case, much to her son's fidgety jealousy. "You can program it to do just about anything, even dance."

"Have you seen Sam?" Harriet asked as she craned her neck to check if he'd parked himself in front of one of the many videogame consoles.

"Nope. Shouldn't he be looking at the dinosaurs? He has a bit of a one-track mind, you know."

"He was until I snapped at him." He wasn't here either. "Text me if you find him."

He wasn't by the board games, the puzzles, or even the playground equipment. How could she have been so stupid? It was hard enough to keep track of a kid in a toy store even when they weren't having a meltdown, especially in one this gigantic. Harriet's legs ached as she paced the countless aisles. "Sam?"

"Everything okay?" Patricia asked as Harriet stormed into the Lego section.

"I can't find Sam!"

"Well, poop," she said, careful not to swear in front of the kids constructing towers on the store's demo table.

"And he was so upset, too." Now Harriet was crying, the tears coming hot and fast at the thought of where Sam might be. Scared and alone in the crowd. Wandering lost in the mall. Following some stranger, not understanding that not all adults have kids' best interests at heart.

Patricia put a hand on her back. "Okay, let's think about this. Have you told the staff he's missing?"

Harriet shook her head.

"I'll get them to call for him on the intercom. I'm guessing you last saw him by the dinosaurs, right? I'm betting he's somewhere around there. Think, what would a little boy who's obsessed with paleontology want to look at?"

"Rocks. He loves collecting those almost as much as the dinosaurs themselves."

While Patricia went off to find a staff member, Harriet sprinted to the science section of the store. Nerdy kids so obsessed with learning they smelled like pencil lead and straight-A report cards clogged the aisles, gawking at the experiment kits for sale. Sea monkey tanks, model volcanoes, crystal growing sets: this section was filled to the brim with stuff that could turn anyone into a wannabe scientist.

Sam sat sniffling with a fossil dig kit cradled in his arms. He curled in on himself as Harriet approached.

She crouched beside him shakily. "You okay, buddy?"

"Go away." His voice came out as half sob, half whimper as he trembled.

Her eyes burned with tears of relief at having found him and horror at realizing how badly she'd upset him. She'd have to calm him down first before he'd even consider any apologies she tried to offer him. "Whatcha got there?"

"Fossils."

She leaned over the box, carefully examining the kit. It boasted over a dozen fossils that could be found inside of a dusty brown rock with the aid of a wooden peg and hammer. That was assuming the kid had both the strength and the patience to excavate the hidden treasures. In all likelihood, the real labor would be left to the parents, chiseling away at the slab and praying they didn't accidentally break one of the fossils.

"That one looks really cool," Harriet said, pointing to the trilobite.

Sam shrugged. "It's okay, I guess. This one's way cooler," he said as he gestured to the tightly spiraled shell of an ammonite.

"Still not as cool as you, though." Harriet pulled him into a tight hug. "Don't go running off like that, okay? You scared me half to death."

Sam's back went rigid against her arms. "I'm sorry," he said, his breath coming out in hiccups.

She planted a gentle kiss on his forehead. "I'm sorry too, sweetie. I never should have snapped at you like that. Think you can forgive me?"

"Okay," he said as he hugged her. He sucked back the last of his tear-fueled snot with a deep, congested inhale as Harriet fought not to gag. She was happy to have him safe and sound by her side, boogers and all.

The store's intercom system crackled overhead. "Will Sam Walker please come to the front of the store?"

Sam groaned. "But I didn't even break anything this time!"

Harriet chuckled. "They're just trying to help me find you." She flashed the cashier a thumbs up as they approached the checkout.

Patricia breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Thank goodness you found him."

Vicky grunted as she dragged half a dozen bulging bags full of toys out of her cart. "Yeah, I looked everywhere."

Patricia gave her a sour look. "For Sam or the toys?"

Vicky rolled her eyes. "I can shop and look for people at the same time, you know. Besides, the good stuff will be long gone by the time Black Friday rolls around."

"I don't know about that," Harriet said. She winked at Sam. "I saw a mighty fine paleontology set Santa had better put on his list."

"You sure I'm not on the naughty list?" he said with a hopeful look in his eyes.

"Nope, just the grounded-for-two-weeks list. After I hit up Sur la Table, anyway."

Vicky groaned. "The cooking store? But my feet huuuurt."

"I've actually been meaning to buy a new casserole dish," Patricia said. "And maybe some cookie cutters for the kids."

"Fine, but let me put this stuff in my car first." Vicky made a big show of struggling to lift the heap of bags as she trudged toward the mall's exit.

"Take all the time you need in there," Patricia said quietly. "Your heart must feel like you've run a marathon."

At last, someone understood how desperately she needed to destress.