He looked toward Jude, who was trying to convince Archer that a cracker could be shaped like a spaceship.

“I’ll keep trying,” he said.

“Then keep showing up.”

We walked back together, not as a couple, but as two people who had been given responsibilities neither could pass to the other.

At the car, Wren handed me a small paper crown and instructed me to wear it all the way home.

I did.

I imagined what Lorraine would have said if she’d seen me driving through Santa Barbara with a crooked crown on my head and three children singing in the back seat.

The thought made me laugh.