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noticed her eyes were closed.
    “I was actually hoping they could stay with us for a few days.”
    “How many of your friends will be with us?” she asked without looking at me, eyes closed, lost in her Standing Tree.
    “Three friends.”
    “Are their parents out of town?”
    “Yes, they are.” That wasn’t a lie. Africa was definitely out of town.
    “And for how many days, exactly?”
    I thought about the date on the flyer. The marathon was in four days, so it wouldn’t be much more than that. “Four, possibly five days.”
    “It will certainly make for a busy house.”
    I lost my balance and stumbled as I put my foot back down to stop myself from tumbling over.
    “It’s not as easy as it looks,” she said.
    “I never thought it looked that easy.”
    My mother exhaled deeply and lowered her foot to the ground. She looked at me and tilted her head slightly to one side.
    “You look very tense,” my mother said. “Nervous … as if there’s something that needs to be released.”
    I felt a little unnerved. Of course there was something else. I just wasn’t used to my mother noticing.
    “Well, my friends … they’re not really from around here,” I said.
    “Oh, are they from the Valley?”
    “Well, you could say that. They’re sort of from the
Rift
Valley.”
    “The Rift Valley? Isn’t that in Africa?” she asked.
    “Yes, it is.” I paused. “And that’s where my friends are from.”
    “Africa?”
    I nodded my head. “They’re already here. How about if you come out and meet them?”

CHAPTER SIX
    “I hope you haven’t insulted our guests by having them stay in the pool house instead of the main house,” my mother said.
    It was encouraging to hear her call them
our
guests.
    “I think they’ll be fine out here. It
is
a guest house, really,” I told her as we circled by the pool.
    “Do you think so? It’s just that it’s not especially nice,” she said apologetically.
    “They normally live in huts made of mud and cow dung,” I explained.
    “Oh, my. I guess this will be fine, then.”
    She knew there were three of them. She knew they were from Africa. I just hadn’t quite found a way to tell her that they were three Maasai warriors. I guess that would become pretty obvious, pretty soon. She’d taken the first two pieces of news remarkably well. Maybeshe’d take the third the same way. Maybe not. It might be better, I thought, if she heard it from me instead of finding it out for herself.
    I understood now that giving somebody only
part
of the truth was pretty much the same as lying. Our family therapist had talked us through that. We’d been seeing her—my mother, my father, and I—ever since I’d returned from Africa. Sometimes it felt kind of pointless. But not always. Sometimes it was actually really helpful.
    Before my trip to Kenya my parents had separated, then divorced, but even though my father didn’t live with us we’d worked things out so that I still spent a lot of time with him. It was only after I’d returned, though—after my life had been changed by that experience—that we’d all agreed to meet for therapy. My parents weren’t getting back together, but they were still both my parents, and we all had to live on the same planet, so it was best that we learned to get along. The biggest lesson I’d learned from therapy was that the truth can be painful, but it’s always better than the alternatives.
    I grabbed my mother by the arm to stop her. I had to tell her. I just wasn’t sure what to say. Maybe a delay would give me time to think.
    “Shouldn’t you get changed before you meet our guests?” I suggested.
    “I’m very comfortable in my yoga clothing.”
    “How about a shower? You were really working up a sweat in there.”
    “I think of it as more of a glow.”
    “I just want you to make the best possible first impression,” I argued.
    “So do I, and not rushing right out to meet them would leave the impression that I’m not thrilled to