“I’m microwaving it,” she says defensively, and just then I hear the ding of the microwave. Callie is plenty old and mature enough to use the microwave or the stove—if she knew how, but I’ve never shown her, because frankly she’s never had to know. I do almost all of the cooking in our house. It’s never even occurred to me that perhaps I should be sharing those duties—not for my own sake, but for theirs.

“How long did you cook it for, sweetheart?” I ask, my heart pounding in my throat.

“I guessed. I thought ten minutes would be enough,” she says innocently, and I grasp the phone a little harder when I see her standing and walking toward the microwave. It sits high on a shelf so Eddie can’t reach it. To get that boiling hot soup out, she’ll have to reach up over her head.

“Don’t touch that!” I say frantically, and Callie frowns into the camera.

“But why?”

“It’s going to be very hot, honey bear. Just...no.” I draw in a deep breath and try to stay calm. “Darling, just do me one little favor, okay?”

“Okay, Mommy?”

“I want you to go into Daddy’s office, and interrupt his meeting, and—”

“But he said not to—”

“Callie, just listen to me,” I say urgently. “Walk up to Daddy’s office and tell him Mommy is on the phone and it’s an emergency.”

“Okay,” Callie says, then she sighs. “I just don’t want to get in trouble, Mom.”

“If anyone is getting ‘in trouble,’” I say fiercely. “It’s Daddy.”

She’s a child of the millennium, that’s for sure—Callie automatically walks to Wade’s office upstairs with the camera frontward so I can see where she’s going, then she opens the door to his office to show me Wade sitting at his big desktop computer. I recognize the lab technician who’s on the huge monitor, and I also recognize that the scratch pad they are sharing between screens is full of mathematical formulas. I can tell Wade is engrossed, because when Callie walks into the room, he doesn’t even look away from the screen.

“Not now, Eddie—” he says, without turning to see which kid it is.

“Daddy,” Callie says hesitantly. “Mommy wants to talk to you.”

I see Wade’s shoulders lock. He reluctantly farewells his lab rat, and I notice the slight pause before he turns to face the phone. Now that he’s facing me, guilt is written all over his face. Callie flips the camera lens around and passes him the phone. He looks down at the screen, surveys my expression, then sighs and says softly, “Callie, can you give Mommy and me a few minutes?”

“Don’t you dare touch that microwave, Callie Michaels!” I call frantically, and confusion filters over Wade’s face.

“But the soup is ready—” Callie protests, and Wade’s eyes widen.

“Callie, go downstairs, do not touch the microwave. Read a book or something till I finish talking to Mommy,” Wade says, and once the door closes, he raises the camera and stares right into my eyes. “Alice, please don’t overreact.”

“Eddie threw a chair and got sent home from school? You forgot to pick Callie up? Callie is washing Eddie’s soiled pants and trying to feed him while you tinker with formulas with Jon? I am so furious right now I do not even know where to start—”

“Eddie had a bad night, and then he had a bad day. It would have happened even if you were here—there’s nothing I could have done to prevent it.”

“Are you kidding me right now, Wade?” I scoff. “Of course you could have prevented it. If you had any clue about how to relate to him you’d have known this morning he was having a bad day and you could have stayed home with him to ride it out like I would have done.”

“We’ve hit a major snag with this plastics project, Alice. I couldn’t just stay home with him. My team needs me too. I’m trying to juggle a million things this week so you can be there—”

“When I called, Callie was just about to get the soup out of the microwave. Soup she’d been cooking in there for ten minutes.”

“Shit...” Wade groans, then runs his free hand through his hair. “Well, why doesn’t she know how to use it?”

That hits a sore spot. She should know how to use it—I’m just in the habit of doing every damned thing myself around that house.

“She has two parents, Wade,” I say defensively. “You could have taught her just as easily as I could have.”

He sighs heavily, then he mutters, “Honestly, Alice—today has just been Hell. The very last thing I need tonight—”

“Callie is ten years old,” I say flatly. “Yes, she’s gifted—but she’s still ten. You can’t expect her to pick up the slack because you happen to be busy at work.” I groan and rub my eyes with my hand. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you guys.”

“It’s one bad day, Alice,” Wade snaps. “I’m allowed to have one bad day.”

“But I knew this would happen,” I say. I sound bitchy. I sound like my mother, actually, and I hate that—but I am just so angry I can’t stop myself. “I knew you’d let me down—”

“I have never let you down,” Wade says, and now he’s furious too.

“Eddie is seven, Wade,” I say blithely. “You tell me one damned time in all of his life when you haven’t let me down.”

It’s the vodka talking. It’s the disappointment speaking. My trip has come to nothing, and I’m going to have to admit to Callie and Babcia and even Wade that I’ve failed. Regardless, I’ve said something I can’t take back—something that’s just way too far over the line of what’s acceptable. Over the screen, I watch as Wade’s eyes widen with shock and a deep kind of hurt that I’ve rarely seen him display. I’m still angry—that doesn’t mean I’m not wishing hard that I could pull those words back in. But I can’t, and so we both just stare into the lenses of our cameras in stiff, uncomfortable silence. It’s Wade’s turn to battle to get control of his temper, but in his case, he wins the battle, and he speaks calmly and evenly.

“I’m going to go downstairs,” he says. “I’m going to go check on Edison and apologize to Pascale. I’m going to salvage the soup. I’m going to take over the laundry. Then I’m going to start the night routine and try to get ready for the school day tomorrow.” He draws in a deep breath, then adds, “What I’m not going to do is to get into a screaming match with you over FaceTime. I don’t think it’s a great idea for you to talk to Eddie tonight, either. He’s pretty fragile today and I think it would make things worse.”