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“I’m aware of that, yes.”

She rocked her face upward, hands on her hips. “God. How could I be so blind? It was totally obvious.”

“Do me a favor, will you?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Jonas can’t ever know.”

She laughed bitterly. “Oh, believe me, the last thing I want is to get mixed up with this mess. It’s your problem.”

“Feel free to think of it that way.”

“What do you want me to tell them? As long as I’m being such a fucking liar.”

I thought for a moment. “I don’t care. A sick relative. It doesn’t really matter.”

“Just tell me: did you ever think about me in any of this? Did I even once cross your mind?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Fuck you,” she said, and strode away.

I lowered myself into the cab. The driver was filling out a slip of paper on a clipboard. He glanced at me through the rearview. “Kinda rough, pal,” he said. “Trust me, I’ve been there.”

“I’m not really in the mood to talk, thanks.”

He tossed his clipboard onto the dash. “I was only trying to be nice.”

“Well, don’t,” I said, and with that we drove away.

* * *

19

I left them all behind.

I did not attend graduation. Back in Cambridge, I packed my belongings—three years later, there still wasn’t much—and telephoned the biochemistry department at Rice. Of all the programs I had been accepted to, it possessed the virtue of being the farthest away, in a city I knew nothing about. It was a Saturday, so I had to leave a message, but yes, I told them, I’d be coming. I thought about abandoning my tuxedo; perhaps the next occupant would get some use out of it. But this seemed peevish and overly symbolic, and I could always throw it out later. Waiting outside, double-parked, was a rental car. As I closed my suitcase, the phone began to ring, and I ignored it. I carried my things downstairs, dropped off my key at the Winthrop House office, and drove away.

I arrived in Mercy in the middle of the night. I felt as if I’d been gone for a century. I slept in my car outside the house and awoke to the sound of tapping on the window. My father.

“What are you doing here?”

He was wearing a bathrobe; he had come out of the house to get the Sunday paper and noticed the car. He had aged a great deal, in the manner of someone who no longer cared much about his appearance. He had not shaved; his breath was bad. I followed him into the house, which seemed eerily the same, though it was very dusty and smelled like old food.

“Are you hungry?” he asked me. “I was going to have cereal, but I think I have some eggs.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I wasn’t really planning on staying. I just wanted to say hello.”

“Let me put some coffee on.”

I waited in the living room. I had expected to be nervous, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t really feeling much of anything. My father returned from the kitchen with two mugs and sat across from me.

“You look taller,” he said.

“I’m actually the same height. You must remember me wrong.”

We drank our coffee.

“So, how was college? I know you just graduated. They sent me a form.”

“It was fine, thank you.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say about it?” The question wasn’t peevish; he merely seemed interested.

“Mostly.” I shrugged. “I fell in love. It didn’t really work out, though.”

He thought for a moment. “I suppose you’ll want to visit your mother.”

“That would be nice.”

I asked him to stop at a grocery store so I could pick up some flowers. They didn’t have much, just daisies and carnations, but I did not think my mother would mind, and I told the girl behind the counter to wrap them with some greens to make them nice. We drove out of town. The interior of my father’s Buick was full of fast-food trash. I held up a bag from McDonald’s. A few dried-out fries rattled inside it.

“You shouldn’t eat this stuff,” I said.

We arrived at the cemetery, parked, and walked the rest of the way. It was a pleasant morning. We were passing through a sea of graves. My mother’s headstone was located in the area for cremations: smaller headstones, spaced close together. Hers had just her name, Lorraine Fanning, and the dates. She had been fifty-seven.

I put the flowers down and stepped back. I thought about certain days, things we’d done together, about being her son.