My mother stood before the judge with both hands pressed against the table.

The family specialist’s name was Ms. Reed.

She came to Dad’s apartment on a Thursday afternoon. He had cleaned the kitchen, but he had forgotten a stack of laundry on the couch. When he saw it, he started to move it.

Ms. Reed smiled. “I’ve seen laundry before.”

I liked her a little for that.

She asked me to show her my room. I pointed out my books, the clay bowl, and the yellow wall. Then she asked what a normal school day looked like.

“Dad wakes me up before his alarm goes off again,” I said.

Dad groaned from the doorway. “That happened twice.”

“Three times.”

Ms. Reed wrote something down, but she was smiling.

I told her we ate breakfast together and that Dad checked my homework without doing it for me. On the evenings when he worked late, his sister Aunt Renee picked me up. Ms. Reed asked if I liked staying with Aunt Renee.

“She lets me help make cornbread,” I said. “And she makes Dad eat vegetables.”

After that, she spoke to Dad alone. I drew at the kitchen table while they talked in the other room.

I could hear my name once or twice. I tried not to listen. It was hard when I knew grown-ups were deciding where I would sleep.

At Mom’s house the following week, Ms. Reed came again. Mom had made a plate of cookies and lined up my school certificates on the mantel.

I wished she hadn’t.

When Ms. Reed asked to see my room, Mom came with us. She pointed out the quilt she had sewn and the books she had bought me.

I liked the quilt. I liked the books. I felt as though I was being asked to choose which room had better things.

Ms. Reed noticed me looking at the floor.

“Could Ariana show me around by herself?” she asked.

Mom hesitated, then nodded.

After she left, I showed Ms. Reed the little marks inside my closet door where Mom had measured my height every birthday.

“She put the year beside each one,” I said.

“Do you want to keep doing that?”

“Yes.”

“You can tell her.”

I touched the newest mark. “I’m scared she’ll think it means I want to live here all the time.”

“You can want this tradition and still tell the judge what you told her.”

When Mom came back, I told her I wanted another mark on my birthday. She smiled at first. Then her eyes filled.

“I’d like that,” she said.

The visit went better than I expected. Mom asked Ms. Reed about the process instead of asking me what she had written down. I noticed how hard she was trying.

The next weekend, Dad and I went to my school’s science fair. I had built a model bridge with Maya. Mom arrived just as the judging began and stood beside Dad at the back of the classroom.

I kept checking whether they were arguing. They weren’t. They both watched when I explained how our bridge held more weight after we changed the supports.

When Maya and I won second place, Mom cheered louder than anyone.

Afterward, the three of us stood together for a photograph. I asked Maya’s mother to take it.

Mom put a hand on my shoulder. Dad stood on my other side. I smiled because, for a moment, I didn’t have to wonder where to stand.

Then a woman I didn’t know came over to congratulate us. She was an older friend of Mom’s. She looked at the three of us and said, “It’s wonderful to see the family back together.”

Mom’s hand tightened on my shoulder.

Dad answered before I had to.

“We’re both here for Ariana.”

The woman nodded awkwardly and left.

On the walk to the cars, Mom was quiet. I thought she might say Dad had embarrassed her. Instead, she told him, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For answering that.”

I slept at Dad’s that night. Before bed, I looked at the science fair picture. We all looked happy. I wanted to put it on my desk in both houses, but there was only one print.

Dad helped me make another copy.

Two days later, Mom called and asked whether I wanted to start a new book with her. We had always taken turns reading chapters aloud.

“I’d like that,” I said.

“You can bring it when you come Saturday.”

She didn’t ask for an extra night. She didn’t remind me how many books she had read to me when I was small.

I felt lighter after the call.

On Saturday, we sat together on the couch with the book. Mom read the first chapter. When it was my turn, I stumbled over a long word.

She waited while I sounded it out.

I looked up. She was listening.

It seemed like a tiny thing. I wanted to tell Dad about it on the way home.

Before I could, Mom’s lawyer called her. She stepped into the kitchen. I heard her say, “No, I don’t want to make Ariana say that.”

I closed the book.