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I don’t want that for Emma. Losing herself to guilt and anger. She still has a chance to release whatever’s chaining her to the nightmares. To believe she deserves to be here. To live this life. So that’s why, when I’m at the register picking up detergent and a few other things I need, I make an impulsive buy to go along with them.

It’s time to change the mood in that house.

Ready?" I holler from the top of the stairs after letting myself into the Decatur Street house.

"For what?" Rachel calls back from Emma’s room.

I toss red and purple squirt guns on Emma’s bed. Stepping into the doorway, I aim a blue one at them. “For this." I let loose.

Emma ducks for cover, and Rachel yelps with laughter. "Oh, you are so going to get it." Rachel claims the red gun and turns my way. I bound down the stairs to escape the spray of water as they chase after me.

I aim over my shoulder, hitting Rachel square on. She shrieks and ducks into the kitchen for cover. I creep along the dark hall toward the back door. I’m contemplating sneaking outside, circling the house, and blindsiding them through the front.

I don’t know where Emma disappeared to. The living room, maybe? A floorboard creaks in the foyer. I still, with my hand on the doorknob. Rachel sticks her head out and nods to where I’ve hidden in the shadows.

When Emma comes into sight, I reach for her arm and maneuver her in front of me.

"You're using me as a shield?" Emma accuses in mock offense.

Rachel comes out of the kitchen with her squirt gun raised. I wave my gun between Rachel and Emma, smiling.

"She's not going to shoot you," I tell Emma, backing us up into the foyer.

"Sorry, honey," Rachel says, aiming for Emma’s face. I didn’t expect that.

“Mom?" Emma’s just as surprised. All of a sudden, Emma drops to the floor. I lose hold of her. And Rachel pelts me with unrelenting streams of water. I try to deflect the worst of it, a hand raised, shooting blindly in their direction.

Laughter echoes through the foyer, ricocheting off the walls. We continue the onslaught until our guns run dry.

I raise my hands. "Time to refill.”

We’re dripping wet and smiling. I made the right call. Impulsiveness was always Sadie and Collin’s thing. But I never resisted.

I get it now. The rush of doing something unexpected without overthinking or calculating. I lived in a house made of cracked glass. Impulsiveness was deemed reckless. It could be costly on a construction site. Or result in a fractured bone from one of my father’s unpredictable moods. Tempers are the most impulsive thing I know, and they destroy lives. Or take them.

“Okay, we get a head start," Rachel announces, pulling me back to this moment, where impulsivity has brought a mother and daughter together, on the same team—against me. I can handle it.

"Jonathan, you have to stay in the kitchen for twenty seconds before you can come out. Ready, Emily?"

Emma nods. Still don’t see her as Emily, no matter how many times Rachel calls her by her birth name. I narrow my eyes comically as I back into the kitchen.

The creaking stairs give them away. I’m preparing to rush up and bombard them when there’s a knock on the door.

“Wait, you can't go outside," Rachel exclaims. The door opens, and Evan walks in.

I’m about to call time-out when Rachel starts shooting at the door. Right at Evan.

“Dude, not good,” I say with a shake of my head, laughing. Rachel realizes what she’s done too late.

She’s horrified, a hand over her mouth, when she finds Evan standing in the foyer with water dripping from his nose. "I am so sorry."

Emma pokes her head out, looks at Evan, and then bursts out laughing.

"What did you do?" I tease, still laughing. "That's not the best way to greet someone."

"Evan, I thought you were Jonathan trying to escape." Rachel’s face flashes with color.

Emma’s still laughing as she descends the stairs. Evan clears the water from his face with the sleeve of his jacket.