Michael watched an army of ants converge on a dead bee for a midday feast. It was a beautiful operation, militarily speaking. Organized, efficient, and fast. He wondered if a bee was considered a good get in the insect class. And this one was freshly dead, its body intact. Nice piece of protein. Would these ants be promoted? Would they gloat?

Madeline's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Honey, grab that cooler, will ya?" she called from a picnic table about ten feet away. He heaved the red Igloo ice chest up and groaned, then awkwardly made his way to the table.

"What's in here?" he asked, dropping it next to the bench. "Thing's gotta weigh fifty pounds."

"We have to give these people drinks, Michael. What's the matter with you?"

"We invited seven kids, Ma," he said. "All we need is a gallon of water."

"They have parents, Michael. And you always have to be ready for extra guests to drop by."

"It's a three-year-old's birthday party. Who else is going to come?"

"Well, that's exactly the point, isn't it," she snapped. "And you don't serve water at a birthday party, Michael," she continued in disgust. "I got them Capri Suns."

"A gross of them?"

"Oh, stop. Go make yourself useful. Why don't you see if Jesse needs help with the grill?"

Jesse did not need help at the grill, Michael knew that, but he jumped at the opportunity to get away from his mother. He strode to the grill pit at the edge of the park. Jesse was fanning a cloud of smoke away from his head.

"Problems?" Michael said.

"No, no, no. Just gotta give it a little juice to get that extra little snap on the dogs."

"I see." Michael pointed to a shriveled, charred log on a plate next to the grill. "Too much juice?" he asked.

"Nah, that's the one Charlie dropped into the fire."

"Intentionally?" Michael asked.

"Hard to say."

"Fair enough." Michael shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away. "You ready for your trip?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna head out about 6:00. I'm on the red eye to London."

"Lauren already there?"

"Actually she's checking out a lead in Prague, but she should be back in a couple of days."

Michael turned back to Jesse quickly. "What kind of lead?"

"Mike . . . "

"What kind of lead?" he repeated.

"C'mon, Mike, we talked about this. You're supposed to be distancing yourself from this op. We got it under control, man."

"I'm sure you do, but how does it hurt to have one more brain on it?"

"Fiona would make it hurt."

Michael rolled his eyes.

"I'm serious, dude. She tells me every chance she gets all the ways she'll kick my ass if you get too involved in this thing."

"Fine. Just be careful, okay?"

"Always, brother." Jesse repositioned the franks on the grill, turning them this way and that. "We ready to get this party started? These are hot dogs of the gods, man. Oscar Mayer himself couldn't make 'em this good."

Michael glanced at his watch. "1:02. Kids should be here any minute."

Jesse smirked. "I can't believe I get to see Michael Westen at a preschooler's birthday party."

"Stranger things have happened."

"No, I don't believe they have, man. But this is good. It's good."

Michael gazed across the park to see Charlie swinging expertly from the monkey bars while Fiona cheered him on. "Charlie's excited. All that matters."

All but one of the invited guests had arrived by 1:15. The kids were running and shrieking, seemingly for the sole purpose of running and shrieking. The parents huddled around the picnic tables Fiona had staked out, chatting politely and munching hot dogs. Every so often a different kind of scream emanated from the herd, and within a second, the appropriate parent would take off running to see if the kid was leaking blood or dangling a limb. Fortunately all injuries and insults were easily fixed by a hug and a kiss.

Charlie's chosen activity for the party was chasing. It's all he'd talked about for a week. Who would chase him. Whom he would chase. Who would chase better – Michael or Fiona. Madeline had tried and failed to talk him in to pin the tail on the donkey, Simon says, and any number of other classics. No. Chasing it was.

So Michael and Fiona had worn their running shoes and prepared to sweat. At 1:30, Madeline interrupted the spontaneous chasing to announce the planned chasing was starting. "Excuse me, can I have everybody's attention, please?" A few parents looked at her. Others appeared not to hear her. None of the kids stopped running or shrieking. "We're getting ready to start the chasing games!" she called a little louder. This time she had most of the adults' attention. Still none of the kids'.

She walked a few feet over to the table where Michael and Fiona were sitting. "Michael," she said under her breath. "Do something."

Michael smirked. "Why?" he stage whispered.

"Michael."

"They're already running around, Ma. Leave 'em alone."

"But I got them donkey tails to pull off each other's butts," she whined.

"Did you keep the receipt?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Fiona, honey? Would you mind getting them?"

Fiona smiled. "Madeline, they do seem to be enjoying themselves just as they are. Maybe we could hold off for a bit?"

Madeline looked over to the swarm of preschooler-shaped bees. "All right, I guess we can do that."

Michael's jaw dropped. "Oh, so her you'll listen to?"

"She had a much better suggestion than you did."

"We had the same suggestion."

"You did not, Michael. You most certainly did not. Fiona said we could hold off for a bit. A bit, Michael. Like a few minutes. You just didn't want to do it at all. Just like with that 'no presents' nonsense. Why you would want to deprive your nephew of the simple joy of birthday presents is beyond me, but whatever."

"He has a roomful of crap he never plays with. He doesn't need more."

Madeline shook her head in disgust and defeat, then stomped away and started rearranging the Capri Suns.

"And he gets his jollies from unstructured chasing, you know," Michael called after her.

"Will you ever ease up on her?" Fiona asked.

"As soon as she eases up on me."

"I won't hold my breath." She stood up and dusted off the seat of her pants. "Let's run."

He groaned. "No."

"Charlie wants us to run."

"It's a hundred and fifty degrees out."

"You can have a Capri Sun afterwards."

"Fine," he sighed. He stretched his arms up and twisted his hips. "You ready?"

Fiona nodded.

"All right. On your mark, get set," he said just before he pushed Fiona to the ground. "Go!" He took off while Fiona scrambled up.

He ran slower than usual to allow Fiona to catch up. When she did, she smacked him on the head. "What the hell?" she yelled.

"Oh, like you weren't planning to do the same thing."

Fiona didn't say anything. She shoved him on the arm hard enough that he nearly lost his balance, then sprinted away.

Three year olds have boundless energy, they say. Constant motion. Running, jumping, twirling, falling. Then, quite often, screaming, hitting, biting, crying. A parent's goal is to encourage the running and jumping and twirling and even the falling, because you have to fall so you know how to get back up, while teaching the kid how to dial down the screaming, hitting, biting, and crying. A straightforward goal, yes, but one that takes a damn long time and more patience Michael and Fiona thought they had. But they were working on it, every day, little by little, knowing Rome wasn't built in a day.

Turns out they could've fast-forwarded the whole process with a cupcake.

You stick a cupcake in front of a three year old, you can count on a few minutes of peace while he eats it. Give him a cupcake that Maddie ordered, where the mound of icing is taller than the cupcake, and you can probably grab a power nap.

That's why their area of the park had been radio silent for five minutes. You could have heard a pin drop. Eight preschoolers and Sam (who managed to miss the chasing but arrive just in time for the food) were gumming down vanilla cupcakes à la Thomas the Tank Engine. The icing was a shade of blue Michael hadn't seen in nature. And when a naïve parent would try to wipe it off a kid's mouth, the color would seep into the kid's skin in a way that made him look like a corpse.

Gradually, the kids finished their cupcakes, and the noise started back up. Then the chasing started back up. Then came the unenviable task of prying a child away from a birthday party. Four kids cried and two more had full-on tantrums as their parents scooped them up and carried their flailing, furious little bodies to the parking lot.

His playmates gone, Charlie switched from chasing to running. After a couple of minutes, he ran to Michael, who was sitting atop a picnic table, watching him.

"Uncuh Micuh, come run with me!"

"My legs don't want to run anymore, Charlie. You all tired me out."

Charlie climbed onto the table and lay down on his back. For a moment, he was still. Then he began kicking his legs up, one after the other, over and over.

"You have a good party?" Michael asked.

"Yah I had lotsa fun except Coby was mean and did a bad cheating 'cause he's a booty booty butt cheek." He never lost a beat kicking.

Michael stared down at him. "A what?"

"A booty booty butt cheek."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"I dunno." Kick, kick, kick.

"Was it Sam?"

Charlie stopped kicking and burst out laughing. "No, silly, Sam's not a booty booty butt cheek!"

"No, not is he one; did you hear it from him?"

Charlie continued to laugh. "Ha ha, ha ha, Sam's a booty booty butt cheek!" he sang.

Michael lifted his head skyward so Charlie wouldn't see him grinning. Because sometimes Sam was, in fact, a booty booty butt cheek.

Author's note: My seven year old has taken to calling people a booty booty butt cheek. Charlie's precocious, though, so he's doing it at three.

I've had this chapter in the works for a while, but I didn't want to post it until I posted the new chapter 47. I say this to disabuse you of any notion that I'm back to being fast. Thanks for reading.