Free Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

with the whine of stiff hinges. “Didn’t anyone notice this poor old dog sitting by the door?” Glen says, and I hear Ginger’s toenails on the tile, and then the soft rhythm of her drinking.
    “We never use the front door,” Ruby says. “Ginger knows that.”
    “She didn’t bark,” says Alex. “She needs to bark if she wants us to let her in.”
    “She never barks, do you, Ging? She doesn’t want to put anyone out. She is the perfect puppy, the most perfect puppy ever in the whole wide world.” Ruby is using her dog voice, which is not dissimiliar to her baby voice.
    “Dad,” says Alex, “which kid is your favorite?”
    They all grin. This is a setup question. Glen has had the same answer since they first asked this question on a family trip to visit their grandparents, when Ruby was eight and the boys were five.
    “Ruby is my favorite on Sundays and Thursdays, Max is my favorite on Mondays and Fridays, and you are my favorite on Tuesdays and Saturdays.”
    A silence, with the sound of Ginger panting, then the familiar coda: “And on Wednesdays I can’t stand any of you.”
    “That is so old,” Alex says, but he is still smiling. He is glad he didn’t have to choose between us. One tree, two trunks. That is what we are to our children. And that is the way I will make certain it stays.

It is that dolphin-gray hour just before sunup, and there is the sound of wailing from outside. In the first fuzzy moments of waking, I think it’s that tom cat from the house behind us, but there’s a powerful emotional undertone to it, and finally I realize that it’s someone repeating a word: No, no, no, no, high-pitched and terrible.
    “What the hell?” Glen says.
    I look outside onto the lawn. Kiernan is standing looking up at Ruby’s window, his hair askew, his bow tie a tired snarl of satin hanging around his thin neck. He sways, so that it looks as though he is being buffeted by the wind, although it is a still morning. He is crying, so that the consonants flatten and disappear.
    “It’s Kiernan,” I say, taking my robe from the foot of the bed.
    “I don’t care if it’s the president of the United States. If that noise doesn’t stop, I’m calling the police.”
    “Go back to sleep,” I say.
    The last I saw of Ruby and her friends was just after 2 A.M. ,when a big group had come back to our house to have breakfast after the prom was over. Rachel’s date had disappeared. The girls had had to convince Rachel not to call him, although it was unclear whether it would be to beg him to come back or to tell him that he was the lowest and should expect never to be acknowledged again.
    I knew better than to ask about this as I stood at the stove, scrambling eggs. Rachel’s mascara was a dirty shadow beneath her eyes, and I heard Sarah say “That is so not acceptable” several times in a peremptory tone much like her mother’s.
    “The DJ sucked a big one,” one of the boys said, too loudly, and I smelled something sweet and yet astringent—maybe bourbon—on his breath.
    “Dude,” Kiernan said reproachfully.
    “Sorry.”
    Ruby’s glossy head was bent over Ginger, who had been given special dispensation to leave her kennel in the middle of the night. Eric was passing bits of corn muffin under the table. “You’re not supposed to feed her,” said Sarah. They already acted like a long-married couple.
    At eight o’clock, burnished to a fine sheen, flawless, untouched, they had tolerated photographs in the front yard. Sarah wore a white strapless dress, her shoulders a sharp muscular shelf above the band of eyelet. Rachel had on a black satin halter dress too old and too snug for her. Kiernan had brought Ruby a beautiful nosegay, tiny roses of a bright pink that matched the obi belt. He bowed ceremonially as he handed it to her, and when he lifted his head his eyes were yearning, pleading. I’ve seen his father, Kevin, with that same look. “Dance with me?” he’d said once when we were all