"Yup," Ivy said. It didn't actually hurt that bad, and her hands felt cool when the gel was on them. Kinda nice, actually. "Five years. He's way nice, too, he lets me hang out with him and Jay sometimes and he walks me home from school." She couldn't quite remember when he'd started that, maybe sometime after the whole Incident with Ellen, but she hoped he never stopped. "He lets me win at Monopoly too. He thinks I don't notice but I do."

Clearly Brenda's kids were wrong about their stepdad, but Ivy let that go. She could be generous in victory.

"My dad adopted me," she added. "When he married my mom. It was my birthday present for being five."