“That’s why she’s not al owed to get another dol for at least a year,” Missy said. She fed her dol some tea. “Because five-year-olds don’t real y know how to take care of them.”

After tea, Ben met them in Central Park and chased the girls around like a monster, while Mol y and Isabel a sat on a bench. “He looks like a keeper,” Mol y said. She elbowed Isabel a. “Maybe this is the one?”

Isabel a sighed. Mol y had been trying to marry her off since she was in seventh grade.

“You know, Isabel a, you need to make sure that he stil respects you. The only thing a girl has is her reputation.”

“Oh my God,” Isabel a said. “Mol y, please stop.”

“You can listen to me now or learn it on your own later,” Mol y said.

“If you talk about the cows and the milk, I’m done,” Isabel a said. “You sound just like Mom.”

Missy came running up to them, her hair escaping from her ponytail and her cheeks flushed. She looked adorable, and for a moment, Isabel a wanted to grab her in a big hug. Then Missy said, “Ben is so funny.” She turned and smiled at Isabel a. “I hope you marry him.”

Missy leaned in close to Mol y and whispered something. She looked concerned, but Mol y told her not to worry. Missy ran back to Ben, who raised his arms and started stomping toward her. She squealed and ran.

Mol y said, “Missy just asked me if you were poor. She asked if you needed to move in with us. She said she’s never seen a place to live that’s so smal .” Then Mol y tilted her head back and laughed and laughed with her mouth open so wide that Isabel a could see her fil ings.

Isabel a had always thought that New York would be devoid of animals, but that wasn’t true. They were everywhere. They were just the kind of animals you didn’t want to see. “I read somewhere that in New York you’re never more than five feet away from vermin,” Mary said. This knowledge haunted Isabel a. The building posted a sign-up sheet once a month for exterminators, and each time the list went up, it was immediately fil ed with capitalized, underlined descriptions of what people needed to get rid of. “MICE!!!” the list read. “ROACHES AGAIN!!!” it said.

Isabel a and Mary could hear scratching between their wal s, and they were sure it was a mouse, although they’d never seen him. “I hear it,”

Isabel a would say. They named him Brad and pretended he was the only mouse in the place. When he scratched at night, it made Isabel a squirm in her bed. If she heard him, she wouldn’t get up until it was morning, afraid that she’d run into him on her way to the bathroom. Even if she had to pee, she’d wait. The mouse was probably giving her a bladder infection.

Because their apartment was approximately a hundred degrees on any given day, the sliding windows had to be left open. They had no screens, so very often Isabel a woke up to the butt of a pigeon facing her. They cal ed the pigeon Pete, and tried to figure out why he only came to Isabel a’s window. Pete perched there almost every morning and cooed and pooped on her windowsil . It was possibly the grossest thing she could imagine.

“Pete, get out of here!” she would scream.

“Don’t yel at him,” Mary would say. “You’re going to scare him and he’l fly into the apartment.”

Isabel a thought she was overreacting, until one morning when she screamed at Pete and he flew backward into her room. She ran to get Mary, who grabbed a broom and slammed Isabel a’s door shut. She was always good in these types of situations.

“Okay,” she said. “When we open the door, you run to the window and open it as far as it wil go. I’l shoo him out.”

“You’re so brave,” Isabel a told her.

It took almost an hour and a lot of screaming, but Pete found his way back outside. They stood sweating and panting, shaking their heads at each other. “I never thought there’d be so much wildlife in New York,” Isabel a said.

“Me neither,” Mary said.

Ben took the train to Philadelphia with her for Thanksgiving. He ate turkey and played with the kids and was charming in a way she hadn’t known he could be. Isabel a’s mom insisted on wrapping up loads of leftover pie for Ben. They took the train back together and he rested his hand on her thigh the whole way. The week after, she didn’t hear from him once, and she wondered if she’d imagined the whole holiday.

It got colder, but their apartment stil hovered around a hundred degrees. In Rockefel er Center, families of five came to see the tree, and walked around holding hands in a line, forcing Isabel a to dart around them on her way to work. It was like one big game of Red Rover, and Isabel a felt sure that she was losing.

Isabel a went home for Christmas alone, with two bags of dirty laundry. The night before she left, she and Ben went out to get drinks. They laughed and had fun, and as they stopped for pizza on the way home from the bar, Isabel a began to think she was wrong to imagine that there was any trouble between them. Later that night, as Ben played with her hair in bed, she let out a happy sigh and he said, “My ex-girlfriend used to make me play with her hair before she fel asleep.” Isabel a pul ed away from him, but his fingers were tangled in her hair and he ended up pul ing out a few strands.

“What?” Ben asked.

“Nothing,” Isabel a said. How could she explain what he did to her? She let him lie there, holding the hair he’d torn out of her head, and think about it.

Christmas at the Mack house was loud and busy. Stuffed reindeer peeked out from the corners, and Scotch tape and snickerdoodles were everywhere. Al of the grown-ups played board games while the kids ran around upstairs. It was safer that way, Isabel a knew. Mack board-game nights weren’t for children.

The night before Christmas Eve, they played Scattegories, and things were already getting messy. Her brother John was mad because he’d brought Cranium to play but had been overruled. “I don’t think we should play anything that involves clay,” Brett said.

“Yeah,” Isabel a said. “It might get physical.”

There were twelve players, so it was impossible to tel if anyone was cheating. Isabel a’s partner, her sister-in-law Meg, chugged appletinis al night and taunted the other teams. “Whooo!” she kept squealing. “Wooohoo! We are going to kick your asses.” Then she held up her hand and made Isabel a give her a high five.

Isabel a’s mother had banned al premade pitchers of drinks after the pomegranate martini incident of Thanksgiving 1998, but someone must have forgotten. When Isabel a had walked into the kitchen that night, she’d seen a big pitcher of unnatural y green liquid. “Appletinis,” Meg had said brightly. “Do you want one?” It was the last complete sentence she said that night. Isabel a’s brother Joseph quietly ignored his appletini-loving wife, leaving Isabel a to high-five her alone.