“You’re not as bony as you used to be,” Dad commented.

I cut up veggies for salad—we eat a lot of rabbit food, as Dad sometimes calls it—but Donna and I are teenagers and no zits between us. I love raw carrots, and you can make a wonderful salad just from turnips and spinach. We had more choice for this one, though: carrots, red onions, cucumber, cabbage, yellow peppers and those little radishes that bite back.

Mom busied herself with a sauce for the pasta and made commentary on our purchases. “You came through like a trooper, Joni. I thought several times that you were gonna cut and run out on us, but you stuck it through.”

“It wasn’t easy,” I admitted. “Is shopping for clothes always so exhausting?”

“Hmm,” she murmured. “Needs basil.” Then she laughed. “Heidi’s the real champion shopper in the family. I’ve known her to spend four hours just buying a pair of shoes.”

I rolled my eyes and peeled another cucumber.

“You only have to take about half the peel off those; they’re English. Leave part of the peel, and they’ll have a stronger flavor.”

“Their behavior going in is not the real concern,” I mentioned.

We both laughed.

“Cutting them fairly thin helps with that, too,” Mom suggested.

“Mmm, hmm,” I agreed. I sliced little cucumber medallions about twice coin thickness and tossed them into the salad bowl. The little yellow peppers only needed their stems removed; we all liked the bit of bite they had if you left them with their seeds. Well, all of us, except Linda, who had once mistaken a jalapeño for a mild yellow pepper and was wary now of anything that looked like a “holy-pain-o.”

I found the cruet in the cabinet and began to mix up some salad dressing with red wine vinegar, a packet of spices, water and extra-virgin olive oil. “If the extra virgins are all making olive oil, what job were the first batch needed for?” I asked.

“That’s one of your father’s jokes,” Mom commented.

“Yeah, and no one would explain it to me until I was eleven!”

We laughed again, and I realized that Mom and I had always gotten along like this. Donna was the prickly one who could always find something to snark about.

I smiled at Mom, and she winked at me, exactly like she knew what I was thinking.

* * *

Dad arrived home while I was outside playing pickle with Linda, with Donna as the girl in the middle. We kept the game kind of low-key so Linda could keep up and make a few catches of my soft throws.

Donna sneered at me at one point. “You still throw like a girl,” she said.

I snorted, “You try throwing around these volleyballs.”

“Boobies!” Linda snickered. “Jonny’s a girl now and has big boobies!”

“Don’t tell the neighbors,” Donna chided her, but Linda ignored the advice.

She tossed the ball back to me, and I almost fumbled it.

“I think your big boobies are pretty,” Linda said to me.

I rolled my eyes, and she giggled some more.

Just then, Dad opened the back door and called us in for dinner. “Your mom says dinner is ready, girls,” he said, then stopped with an apologetic glance at me. “Sorry, Jonny,” he began, but a low-flying Linda hit him just above the knees.

“Joni has some new clothes ‘cause she’s a girl now, too, like you said, and she’s going to give you a fashum show after dinner!” Dad laughed, picking up the four-year-old for a quick hug.

“I didn’t say I would,” I protested.

Donna laughed. “You said you would have to,” Donna put in, collecting her own hug before taking Linda to go inside.

“I didn’t say that either,” I whined, even if I had thought it.

But now it was my turn to get a hug. Dad’s arms went around me, and I leaned into it. Hugs were always good, but this felt more special than usual.

“You’re not as bony as you used to be,” Dad commented, holding the door open for me as we finished the embrace.

“Das ‘cause she’s got volleyballs now,” Linda called as Donna put her in the taller chair.

Everyone laughed, even me, and Linda asked, “Wha’d I say funny?”

The kid is too cute to live and too adorable to strangle.

* * *

We sat down to eat, and Dad explained that there was no way to get in to see a specialist on Monday, so Tuesday, I would go to University Hospital to see an expert in childhood endocrinology.

“I had to borrow some strings to pull,” he noted.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said. “I guess I can get out of two days of school this way?”

“One way to look at it,” Mom commented.

“I like school,” Linda put in, making all of us smile at her. Maybe not me, even if it was my own joke.

I must have looked a bit mopey because Donna put in, “I thought endocrainiology would just be about stuff that’s all in your head?”

Dad started to explain about hormones being the field of endocrinology, and Mom and I exchanged a look, knowing Donna was just winding Dad up.

I didn’t want a scoop of ice cream for dessert, so I asked to be excused.

“Oh, yeah,” Linda said. “You gotta get the fashum show ready. C’n I have your ice cream?”

“There’s not gonna be,” I began, but Donna interrupted.

“I get Joni’s ice cream,” she proclaimed, “cause I’m next eldest!”

Which got Linda to protest, “But I’m youngest!”

“I’ll flip you for it, squirt,” Donna offered.

“Nuh-uh!” Linda refused. “Last time you flipped me for it, I bump’ded my head!”

I got out of there while Donna was coming up with a response to that.