Kate (Ashley's mother)
I smiled, watched Jeff grill the hamburgers. It had been a long road. I didn't think I'd ever love again, not after my husband left me for a man. I guess, if I'm honest with myself, that I had known he wasn't being honest with himself. I had known something wasn't right. But his coming out of the closet had the distinct disadvantage of tearing up our family.
I watched Jeff grill the hot dogs, watched Toby and his friend J.T. run in the house shooting each other with water guns. Watched Ashley given them a dirty look. It was okay. It was getting better.
Joey (Craig's step-father)
Oh yeah. People looked at cars but didn't seem all that interested in buying them. And who would, what with the gas prices and food prices and hydro costs? Times were tough and getting tougher. I sounded like a damn Eminem song. And I hated all this worry about these mundane matters. But it was where I was. In the red again.
Spike (Emma's mother)
Baby Jack. He was so cute. Little fat face, little chubby fingers and toes. Pale like Snake but that was okay. Snake and Shane had the same basic coloring so my kids would look fully related. But man, this long wait between Emma and Jack was mind blowing. I was such a kid when Emma was born, and now I wasn't.
Albert (Craig's father)
I stilled my mind. Focused. Concentrated. Everything was where it should be. The sterile field, the nurses, the anesthesiologist. The hum of the oxygen tank and the hum of the machines. My patient laying before me, the flesh revealed in a square where I was about to cut.
Snake (Emma's step-father)
What I was thinking was that I couldn't believe that Emma was in seventh grade. Already. I mean, I remembered when Spike was pregnant, for god's sake. Pregnant. That had been mind blowing. And then she had a baby, little tiny baby Emma. She'd bring her to school once in a while, and I saw how the other girls feared and envied her. She was a mother. Someone's mother. And she was an eighth grader. And Emma had always been sick, runny noses and watery eyes and that pathetic little baby cough. Always sick and Spike was always changing diapers and it had seemed like, well, like a lot of work. But now here she was, a bright and happy seventh grader and I'd get to teach her. It just sort of blew my nose.
Julia (Craig's mother)
I cuddled up to Joey on the couch. My new husband. And the pollywog tadpole baby swam in my stomach. The T.V. crackled happily away and I could feel the warmth of the room, the warmth of Joey beside me, the warmth of my new family. But of course something nagged at me. My old family. It was still, even now, difficult to distance myself from Albert. And Craig. My sweet son Craig. I hoped and prayed that he would be okay.
Daphne (Peter's mother)
It was kind of like being president after a war, being principal after the shooting. It's terrible to say, but sometimes it seems that this is more of an American problem. Not here. This kind of stuff happens in the United States, where things are crazy and violent and there are no morals and no restrictions on anything. Not here. But I guess we were all wrong.