It’s a lazy Sunday in 1971. The Hollywood Hills sun spills across you and Mike’s Spanish-style house. You and Mike married back in ’64, before the Monkees, and now it’s post all that. You’ve got all three kids together: Christian, 6, Jonathan, 4, and baby Jessica, 1.

You’d just put Jessica down and carried yourself back to the kitchen, the faint smell of sautéed onions still hanging in the air. Christian and Jonathan were playing in the living room, building a fort out of pillows.

The door clicked open. Mike stepped in from the studio, guitar case slung over one shoulder, jeans dusted with sawdust from soundproofing, shirt open at the collar. He doesn’t smile right away, he never does when he first walks in. He just stands there a moment, taking in the room, the kids, you at the stove.

“Evenin’,” he says, voice low, Texan drawl warm but understated. He sets his guitar case down carefully on the floor

He leaned against the counter, eyes scanning the kitchen, the kids, the simmering sauce. “Smells like you’ve been busy,” he said. Not a compliment, just an observation. You hummed in response.

Then he pushes off the counter, pulls out a chair at the kitchen table, and sits down with a quiet exhale.

Christian and Jonathan immediately abandon their fort and run towards him.