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son. Will had just discovered the skateboarding and surfing culture of Southern California, and leaving it behind for landlocked, uncool Dallas was, to his young mind, nearly a mortal blow.
    “I hate this place!” he shouted, enraged, by way of greeting. “There’s nothing to do! Dallas sucks!”
    Here we go again, Amanda told herself.
    “I’ve asked you never to use that word, Will,” she said calmly. She simply didn’t have the energy for a struggle. It never went well under the best of circumstances. And besides, today it was just too hot.
    “Dad uses it all the time,” her son countered. His father was his hero and he worshipped the ground he walked on.
    “I’m not Dad,” Amanda said, trying unsuccessfully not to raise her voice. Sarah approached and gave her a waist-high hug.
    “Why’d’ja have to take us away from Dad anyway?” Will asked, obviously ready for battle.
    Amanda was exasperated. If your father hadn’t had the morals of an alley cat, she wanted to tell him, you’d be skateboarding this very minute on Balboa Island. But she wanted to be extremely careful not to say or do anything that could affect Will’s relationship with his father. It was bad enough that the boy was going to be fifteen hundred miles away from his dad, unable to see him on a regular basis. The last thing Amanda wanted was to be accused of poisoning the relationship between the two of them.
    “We’ve been over this a thousand times,” Amanda said wearily. “It just didn’t work out between Daddy—your daddy and me. I wish the truth were otherwise, but it’s not.”
    “Well then, let’s make it a thousand and one times,” Will sassed back. “Dallas sucks. This house sucks. I hate it here.”
    “You haven’t even given it a chance,” Amanda said mechanically, but she just didn’t have the energy to match his anger. She tousled his hair. “You’ll see.”
    The boy recoiled from his mother’s touch. “I hate when you touch my hair like that.”
    “Okay, Will,” Amanda said, trying not to let the thing escalate. But with Will, as with his father, escalating anger could happen in an instant.
    “Did you get the keys, Mommy?” Sarah asked. She was nine years old going on twenty-five, physically a mix of Amanda and Bill, with long, straight blond hair and Amanda’s green eyes and warm, self-deprecating smile. It broke Amanda’s heart that Sarah didn’t have a daddy to live with, and Amanda had given over many hours in a therapist’s office discussing whether it might be better to keep the marriage intact for the sake of the children. Ultimately, Amanda had decided that a precocious child like Sarah, who heard everything and missed nothing, would be far more confused—even damaged—by her father’s philandering if she had to witness it up close. Amanda couldn’t have Sarah growing up thinking that this was what a happy, healthy marriage looked like. That was the final straw in making the decision to get the divorce and move back home.
    “I got ’em,” Amanda said.
    “That’s so great!” Sarah exclaimed with an excitement that Amanda didn’t understand, but for which she was grateful. At least someone was happy about their new life. “When are we moving in?”
    “It all depends on the movers,” Amanda said. “They’re supposed to be here in the morning. We could realistically be in the house by tomorrow night.”
    “And none too soon,” came a voice from the hallway. It was Amanda’s mom, Elizabeth Smith. “These kids are more than I can bear,” she said as she strode into the room. “Well, just Mister Tough Guy over there.”
    Will gave a half smile. Nothing could make his day like proof from adults that he was driving them crazy.
    “Hi, Mom,” Amanda said. “It’s just for one more day.”
    “I know,” Elizabeth said, waving a hand dramatically at her grandchildren. “It’s just not something I’m used to. Especially not in this heat. It’s so hot and dry the trees are