Joanne counted it a minor miracle when she managed to get Ava and Mikey into her car without much more of a hassle. There was the obligatory tussle for the front seat, which Joanne settled by tossing her briefcase on the passenger seat before either child could get inside the car. “Now you both have to sit in the back,” she told them. But if she thought that would settle things, she was wrong. For the short, ten-minute drive, they bickered and fought, Ava slapping Mikey’s hand away whenever he reached across the seat to poke at her, Mikey howling with indignation each time she managed to strike him. By the time Joanne pulled to a stop in front of their elementary school, she was ready for a stiff drink or a glass of wine, and it wasn’t even ten in the morning yet.
And Michael actually wan
