It’s a good thing Dan’s not here, after all. He hates feeling like a misfit.

Upperclassmen, facing their orientation groups and talking constantly, are showing the new students around. The tour guides walk backward with impressive confidence, certain they won’t stumble.

Molly maneuvers the rumbling old SUV into the narrow street. It’s easily the largest noncommercial vehicle in sight. She pulls into a gap at the curbside, her mouth grim as she tries to align the big truck along the curb. “I won’t miss parking this beast,” she grumbles.

She switches off the engine. It dies with a shudder. I turn to find her looking at me, and for a moment, the two of us just sit, staring into each other’s eyes, not smiling, not talking, just…looking.

It’s amazing how much you can see in a face you love, all the layers of years, still visible in the present moment. The infant Molly, her eyes as blue now as they were then, round and open wide, staring upward at me. And my face, eighteen years ago, had filled the baby’s whole world.

“Okay,” Molly says suddenly, unbuckling her seat belt with a decisive click. “We’re here.” The car inhales the belt as she jumps out and slams the door.

A black Lexus trolls along the street, headed straight for Molly. Watch out. I nearly scream the warning, but the moment passes before I open my mouth. She steps up onto the curb, the car whizzes by and I sit alone in the passenger seat, my heartbeat a stampede of anxiety.

“Okay,” I mutter, echoing Molly. “We’re here.” The breeze carries a subtle chill, a whiff of dry leaves, the tang of autumn. If we were back home, I’d be posting the high school football schedule on the fridge and paging through bulb catalogs.

Molly has the cargo doors open and is staring at the lopsided stacks and bundles. Uncertainty creases her brow.

I offer a suggestion. “Maybe you’d better—”

“—check in first,” Molly finishes for me. “I was so going to do that.”

“You want me to come in with you?”

“That’s okay, Mom. It’ll probably only take a few minutes.”

“I’ll wait out here, then.”

The Suburban huddles in a rusty heap, disreputable, inferior compared to the gleaming, late-model cars with plates from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia. In contrast to the forest-green and burgundy imports, the old Chevy, with its flaking paint job, is as garish and ungainly as a parade float left out in the rain.

The Joads go to college, I’m thinking, certain everyone is staring at me. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I focus on the shopping bag filled with my brand-new, never-worn clothes. I should have worn something special for today, comes the belated thought.