“There will be plenty of kids your age. And we’re all going to live together, contribute together and be a community.”

“Dad hated socialism.”

“It’s like this experiment, really,” she explained, obviously pretending she hadn’t heard Summer. “Taured was this...this...gangly teenager with adult ideas. It was hard to take him seriously until he started speaking, then everyone would shut up and listen. Anyway, he had this idea when we were just kids and it’s neat being able to be a part of helping him build it.”

“If you’ve been friends with him for so long, why have I never heard of him?”

Lorraine tensed, her arm sliding off the back of the seat where it had been resting.

“Your father didn’t like me having friends, least of all male ones.”

Her mother had never said anything like that to her before. Summer straightened in the back seat, her body tightening with this secret.

“Why not?”

“He was jealous.”

She pictured her dad’s big smile and bigger sideburns and something flipped uncomfortably in her chest. In her memory, his face took on a strange look—the light in his eyes snuffed out and burned like coals. Now that it had been said out loud, she could see it: her dad’s crazy moods. He had yelled at her mom a lot. She always put her Walkman on when they were fighting, but sometimes she heard snippets of what he was yelling. When she looked up, her mom was studying her in the rearview mirror.

“He was different with you than he was with me,” she said simply.

They hadn’t known a lot of people in California, just her dad’s family, and they were kind of strange, but it was still the only place she’d ever lived. Her mama had left her family behind when she’d met Summer’s dad and gotten pregnant. As much as Summer scanned her memory, she couldn’t recall a time her mom had friends over or went out to lunch with someone. Anger bounced up into her chest and she didn’t know what to do with it: anger at her dad, anger at her mom—she was even mad at herself.

“You hate talking about Dad.” Her voice was hurt, accusatory. Again, it had just sprung into her head and she’d said it.

“I don’t,” her mother said, and then she sighed deeply. “Look, Dad owed a lot of people money. That’s why we had to leave. Awful people...no, scary people,” she corrected herself. “We couldn’t stay there.”

“Why couldn’t you keep babysitting and pay them back?” Summer asked.

“Hon...” Her mother’s voice was strained. “I could babysit for the rest of my life and still not be able to pay those guys.”

“Okay.” It was the best peace offering she could make.

“It’s you and me now, kiddo.”