“Is that one of those exercise things?” he asked. “Like, it tells you how far you walk every day?”

I’d thought my jeans had been long enough to mask the monitor, but apparently not. I could lie, but decided against it. “Actually, no,” I said. “It’s an alcohol monitor. I had a problem with drinking.” I surprised myself with the admission. It was the first time those words had come out of my mouth. I’d never uttered “problem” and “drinking” in the same sentence before. About my parents, yes. About myself, never. At the AA meetings, I had yet to stand up and proclaim I was an alcoholic. “A problem with drinking” didn’t sound quite so ominous, and yet the words made me wince. It was the truth, though, wasn’t it? I had to own up to it. I wouldn’t be in the mess I was in if I didn’t have a problem with drinking. If I’d been sober the night of the accident, I would have been driving and my life—and Emily Maxwell’s life—would be completely different now.

“So this keeps me from drinking,” I continued, “because when you drink, the alcohol comes out in your sweat and the monitor would know and would tell…” My parole officer? I really didn’t want to go into all that with this boy. “It would tell my doctor I had a drink. So this helps me to not drink.”

“You’re an alcoholic?” he asked, cutting to the chase.

I hesitated. “I guess you could say that,” I said finally. “And I drank too much and got into a car accident, so I can’t—I don’t want to—drink anymore.”

“Oh,” Nathan said. “Do you always wear it? Like do you have to wear it for the rest of your life?”

“No. Just for now.”

“What happens when you take it off? Then you’ll need willpower, right? To not drink?”

“Exactly.” I smiled, impressed that he’d made that leap in his thinking. He was so cute. Such a miniature Oliver. I wanted to put an arm around his shoulders. Give him a squeeze. “But by then I’ll have made a new habit. A new nondrinking habit. So I won’t drink once I take it off, either.” We’d reached the corner and started across the street. I needed to get the conversation off myself. “Your dad is really looking forward to going to Smith Mountain Lake with you,” I said as we stepped up the curb at the other side of the street.

“Mmm,” he said. “I don’t know if I can go.”

“Really? Why not?”

“My stepdad is getting us tickets to Disney World and he thinks that’s the only time he can get off before school starts up.”

“Does your dad know?”