* * *

As predicted, when Jett’s father got the call from Ms. Kaczynski, he was not mad. He was disappointed. This was supposed to make Jett feel worse, but it didn’t. Jett knew his father was still too distracted by grief to feel anything else, even anger, which was something like grief’s first cousin. His father was stuck on a note: sad, sad, sad. He couldn’t seem to reach any other register for even a moment, although Jett had tried to give him a nudge. Jett made jokes, acted out, got bad grades and then exceptional grades. Once, he purposefully spilled a bottle of Dr Pepper on a stack of his father’s papers, just to see what would happen. His father had merely sighed and asked Jett to get some paper towels. At night, Jett could hear him weeping. It made him ache with something he’d never felt toward his father: contempt. If his father was going to cry, Jett at least wanted to be in on it. It frustrated Jett, who had cried all the time in the beginning. The tears had come on suddenly, out of nowhere, like a sneezing fit: in the frozen food isle, mid-push-up in gym class, while taking a bite of grilled cheese. Any little thing could remind him of his mother. Once, it was a can of stewed tomatoes. Another, the way one of his teachers scratched the skin beside her nose. He didn’t mind. At school, he’d become a minor celebrity. Girls stared at him from across the cafeteria. The teachers let him turn in homework as late as he wanted. And then here was his dad, secreting his grief like it was a Playboy. Jett didn’t like it at all.

On a sour note, he was still grounded.

“But I’m supposed to help Roni with her English paper,” he said. “It’s academic. Not social.”

His father was making beans and weenies for dinner. This was the second night of beans and weenies that week; the night before had been Lucky Charms and instant mashed potatoes. Jett’s mother had been the cook. His father was the businessman, the mathematician, the engineer. He could, if needed, unclog a toilet with a wire hanger, but boiling eggs was a conundrum. “Then Roni will have to come over here,” his father said.

This was something Jett could work with. “All right, but just so you know, when I go over to Roni’s house, her mom lets us study alone in her room. She even lets us close the door.” Jett tried to keep his cool. “That’s how we normally do it, and she’ll expect it to go the same over here.”

This didn’t seem to faze his father, who was adding a pinch of sugar to the cauldron of Hebrew Nationals—his idea of a Michelin star meal. “Study on the moon for all I care,” he said. “Just keep it down. I’ve got work to do.”

Roni’s mother dropped her off at dusk. She stood at Jett’s front door in a white tank top and a pair of jean shorts. She held a red binder against her chest, the development of which Jett had been closely monitoring since the sixth grade, when she’d shown up at his bar mitzvah party in a sequined halter top.