“We’re here,” Ty hollers as he kicks open the front door to my house, startling all the kids into silence for a moment. They’d been wrestling on the rug, making me nervous about knocking down the Christmas tree, so even though I want to be annoyed with Ty, I’m grateful he at least got the rascals to sit still.

“We can see that, Ty,” I tell him, shaking my head as he takes off Juniper’s coat and hangs it on the hook above the radiator.

He ...