“Yeah,” Hud said. “Totally.”

“All right, well, everybody get in,” Nina said, taking the keys from Jay. “We’re late for the lawyer.”

The four of them piled into the car and Nina started backing out of the driveway.

“I’m sorry,” Jay said, sincerely.

Nina looked at him in the rearview mirror, catching his eye. “What doesn’t kill us,” she said.

She put the car in gear and they went on their way, to file the paperwork so that Nina could petition the court for custody of them all.

In a sworn affidavit, she testified that she had no knowledge of her father’s whereabouts and that she was the only known relative in the country who could provide for them. She asked for the responsibility of three dependents.

She knew her father would be notified. He would be given the option of claiming his rights. And she wasn’t sure what she expected him to do.

But after a few weeks, Nina got a letter in the mail saying the paperwork had been approved.

So, she reasoned, he either signed them away or didn’t respond at all. Either way, she was now what he refused to be: a parent.

After it became official, the four of them went to Riva’s Seafood to celebrate. They were hanging out in the break room while Nina made them the Sandwich for the first time.

“What is this?” Kit said, looking at it as she sat down.

“I put a bunch of stuff in the kitchen onto a roll,” Nina said.

“It looks delicious,” Jay said, taking a bite.

Hud picked up his sandwich and before he took a bite, he looked at his older sister, who, in becoming his legal guardian, had settled the stress that lived in him on an almost daily basis. Their day-to-day life would be no different now. It would be full of the same loss, the same challenges. But he no longer had to worry the state would come and take Kit.

“Thank you,” Hud said.

Nina looked up at him. She could feel the weight of his gratitude. She had to keep herself from crying. The world seemed no more manageable to her today than it had yesterday. Only a little less unpredictable.

“Yeah,” Jay said, nodding. And Kit piped in, too. “Seriously.”

Nina smiled a small, slight smile. She didn’t say, “You’re welcome.” She didn’t think she could get the words out. And so, instead, she nodded toward their sandwiches and said, “All right, eat up.”

6:00 P.M.

Kit opened the front door without knocking. Nina’s expansive home was already filling with people.

There were cater waiters dressed in black pants and white button-downs with black ties. There were bartenders in black vests organizing bottle after bottle, punctuating the air with the sound of glass stinging glass as they moved.

A cocktail waitress with red hair and green eyes walked by Kit, and Kit stopped her. “Is Nina upstairs?”

“Oh,” the waitress said, getting her bearings. “Nina Riva? Yes, I believe she went to get dressed.”

Kit studied the waitress and wondered how she managed to be so pretty while being so plain. She wasn’t wearing much makeup that Kit could see and her vibrant hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. And yet, it was undeniable, her allure.

“Thanks,” Kit said. “I’m Kit, by the way.”

The waitress smiled. “Caroline,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

With her shoes in her hand, Kit ran up the stairs to Nina’s bedroom. She gathered her breath and knocked on the door.

“Oh, hey,” Nina said, seeing her.

“Hi,” Kit said. She moved through the doorway into the warmth of the room.

Nina was wearing a black suede miniskirt and a silver-sequined sleeveless shirt, which hung effortlessly off her shoulders, showing her bare back.

Kit’s beautiful sister. Whose calendar was on everyone’s wall. Just standing next to her, Kit felt childish. In some ways, Nina made Kit feel loved and cared for and safe. In other ways, just looking at Nina made Kit feel desperately lonely, as if she was the only person in the world with her specific problems.

“What’s up?” Nina asked.

Kit’s shoulders fell. “I look like shit.”

Nina frowned. “What are you talking about? You look great,” she said, shuffling through her jewelry box, considering earrings for herself.

“No, I don’t.”

Nina turned to her sister, taking her in. “Of course you do. Stop saying that.”

“Stop saying I look great when I don’t,” Kit said, losing her patience. “What good does it do to lie to me?”

Nina cocked her head in the other direction, put her arms behind her, rested on the edge of the vanity. She gazed at Kit, expressionless, for what felt like ninety million minutes. It was four seconds. “You don’t dress very sexy, is that what you mean?” she finally said.

Kit started to feel ill, curling in on herself like a poked porcupine. It felt terrible, simply terrible, to have the most vulnerable thing about you pointed out and given a name.

“Yes,” she said, moving through the angst. “That’s what I mean.” And then she added, “But I want to. And I don’t know what to do about it. I … I need your help.”

“OK,” Nina said.

“And I don’t want to wear a tight dress,” Kit spit out. “Or high heels or any of that. That’s not me.”

Nina considered her little sister. What a gift it was to know so clearly what you were not, who you did not want to be. Nina wasn’t sure she’d ever asked herself that question.

“Well, OK. What do you want to wear? Is there a particular way you want to look?”

Kit mulled it over. She thought of the girls she’d been drawn to in high school. Julianna Thompson, the captain of the soccer team, who wore bell-bottoms and plaid shirts. Or Katie Callahan, the valedictorian, who always wore that headband and ribbons in her hair. Or Viv Lambros or Irene Bromberg or Cheryl Nilsson. But she never wanted to be those girls. She could never really see herself wearing their dresses or their skirts or anything. She just liked them, admired them. She didn’t see herself in them. Maybe that was part of the problem. That she could never really see this side of herself in anyone yet.

“I don’t know,” Kit said. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“All right, never fear, my dear,” Nina said. “I know exactly what to do.” She opened the top drawer of her vanity and pulled out a pair of scissors.

“Give me your jeans,” Nina said.

“Excuse me?” Kit said.

“Your jeans,” Nina said, reaching her hand out. “Hand ’em over. Trust me.”

Kit unbuttoned her pants and slipped out of them. She gave them to her sister and stood there in her underwear.

“I’m basically naked now,” Kit said, uncomfortable.

“There’s no difference between standing there in your underwear and standing there in a bathing suit, which you do every day,” Nina said as she got to work. “Relax. I have this under control.”

With two swift cuts, Kit’s favorite jeans were now her favorite shorts. Nina had created an angled edge to them, shorter in the back, a bit longer in the front. The pockets hung lower than the hemlines. Nina pulled at the newly shorn edges, fraying them.