I pressed my forehead against the window and looked toward that final thread of light. Sage would be working at the mall, waitressing in J. C. Penney’s diner. For the summer they’d offered her full-time. I’d spent almost all my summers with her. I thought about forging my mom’s signature to get working papers. At fifteen, I could officially work, but I knew I wouldn’t be allowed, that she needed me to look after the younger ones when she was at the hospital. Her job was admissions receptionist in the ER at Paoli Memorial. Sage said I was lucky. She complained about the other waitresses in their support hose and orthopedic shoes, splashing coffees on the counter for other geriatrics who sprayed tester perfumes in the morning over their eggs and toast. But I envied her real job, with regulars and tips and people who stiffed her and the stories she told. One customer in her nineties drank half-and-half from the white porcelain creamer left on the counter every morning, leaving behind a sloppy lip print in bright orange. It wasn’t about money or work—I had my Friday-night babysitting job for the Bouchers. I was afraid of all the days ahead of me alone.

Thomas was reciting the periodic table in a low whisper on the other side of Ellen. “There’s holmium, hafnium, erbium—”

“Stop,” she said.

“—phosphorus, francium, fluorine, terbium.”

“Shut up. Just shut up!” Ellen put her head down on her knees and crossed her arms over her shins. She was crying. A throbbing pain that started in my neck had moved across my skull into my forehead. I wanted them both to shut up.

“You’re annoying everyone, Thomas. Just stop,” I said.

“Did you know tears contain glucose, sodium, and potassium?”

“Shut up, you weird science freak.” Ellen kicked his shins twice with her heel, shoving the driver’s seat, which she’d gripped for support.

“Stop it this instant. Do you want us to crash?” My mother was furious.

“Tears contain a natural chemical painkiller, enkephalin,” Thomas whispered. “You’ll feel better afterward.”

“Make him stop.” Ellen’s voice was muffled.

Her whine and his murmurs made me want to hit him or someone. Ellen’s head was back on her knees. I reached across her and pushed him hard on the shoulder with my knuckles.

“Shut up, Thomas. What do you know about tears?”

I said it and wished I hadn’t because there was something wrong with him, the way he didn’t cry after all that had happened to us, how he just disappeared into himself and his room. Right then, teasing Ellen, he was more like the old Thomas.

He turned toward the window and didn’t say anything back. It would have been better if he got angry. I tried to undo it, remembering a joke. “Hey, Thomas, if you’re boring and a moron, guess what that makes you?”