Page 105 of What Boys Learn

I wait for him to scold me for prying, but he looks calm and curious.

“So?”

“Do you like her?”

“Define ‘like.’”

“How many miles are we from your home?” he asks a while later.

I reach for my pocket before remembering I left my phone at home, the way he told me to. No screens for two weeks. He told my mom it would be just one, and he told me if I left my crappy phone at home he’d buy me a new one, as long as I never once whined about being offline. “I don’t know.”

“Math, Ben. Math.”

I look over at his speed. He’s doing ninety, but maybe only since we crossed the border into Wisconsin. I didn’t see what time we got in the car. But I look up at a sign for Milwaukee exits and I guess. “Fifty.”

“Close.”

He passes several more cars. Mr. C—I mean Matt—or Dr. Matt—has a killer foot. He taps the steering wheel again, which I now see has tiny holes in it, like a fancy leather glove.

“You know how many miles from home most serial burglars and rapists travel to commit their crimes?”

“Um. No?”

“Three miles.” He laughs. “Stupid, huh?” Then he looks over at me. Long and serious. “You’d never be that stupid. Would you?”

• • •

We’re coming up to a sign that saysMADISONwhen Matt says, “Not too late.”

We pass it before I have time to ask him what he means.

“Still not too late,” he says as we approach another sign. “We can get off at the next one and come back around.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“You ever been up to Bosqueville?” he asks. “It’ll add another two to three hours, but driving’s the best part, right?”

I know Bosqueville. From the envelopes.

“My uncle’s in a maximum-security prison there.”

“Ding-ding-ding,” he says, like we’re on a game show. “Ewan would expect me to drop in, if I was in the area.”

“You know my uncle?”

He never mentioned that. Not the first time he came over and talked about my uncle and how I shouldn’t write to him, not the time my mom and I had a big fight about it. Not a few days later in session when he asked me, again, how I felt about my uncle and would I want to talk to him after all. Maybe he’s pulling my leg.

“I know your whole family,” he says. “I knew your brother even before I met your mom. Can you guess why?”

“Because you taught at his college?”

“Your uncle never went to college. He was sent away at the age of eighteen, just two years older than you.”

I watch exits come and go—gas, coffee, fast food, gas. Matt keeps veering toward the right side of the road, like he’s waiting for me to say something, dropping speed from 80 to 75 to 70 to 60, then retaking the center of the lane.

“I met him at Menkoka before you were born,” he says, finally. “And then I met him again when I was visiting Bosqueville to do some follow-up studies on recidivist research subjects. Boys of mine from Menkoka who ended up reoffending landed in maximum security in a location much less pleasant than our juvenile center. We had enough men of the same profile, all in the same place, that we were able to launch a larger study, including with men who’d never had the advantage of our Menkoka program—those would be the ‘controls.’ Do you know whatcontrolmeans?”

I did science fair once. But I don’t answer, and I know he’ll go on anyway.