Two weeks earlier, back home in L.A., he had also been staring out his bedroom window screen. The view had been a little different: Century City from two hundred feet up, Santa Monica, the 405, Venice Beach out in the marine fog—those things and a thousand others that made up the backdrop of his world. He had stood there trying to soak it all up—to appreciate it before he lost it.

Thirsty, he had turned from the window and stepped out of his bedroom. He passed his parents’ room, darkened with the door not quite shut. Only his dad was in there tonight; his mom was in San Diego, visiting her sister—saying goodbye before the big move to Bumfuck, Iowa. She had made no secret of her feelings on the whole matter. She was happy in Los Angeles, thank you kindly. That the family was moving because of Mr. Dryden’s job—new corporate office in the burgeoning city of Brenner, five miles north of Ashland, gotta have our best legal guys there to get things off on the right foot—had caused more than a bit of friction between Sam’s mom and dad in recent weeks. He happened to be thinking about that very thing, returning with his bottled water, when he passed their doorway again. He was three steps farther when he heard his father speak, just above a whisper.

“Of course we don’t tell Sam. Jesus, Audrey. He’s got enough to deal with right now. We’re not dumping this on him, too.”

Sam stopped. He turned and moved two steps back toward the cracked-open door. In the silence, he heard the tinny monotone of someone’s voice over a telephone earpiece. His mom, speaking from San Diego. No way to make out her actual words, but something of her tone came through. She sounded mad.

Mad about whatever it was they weren’t dumping on him.

And what the hell might that be?

The question had hardly taken shape in Sam’s mind before a pretty obvious answer came to him.

Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you two breaking up? How’s joint custody going to work? Am I going to shuttle back and forth between L.A. and Green Goddamned Acres every two weeks?

He felt his hand tighten around the water bottle. He had always liked to think of himself as a pretty worldly kid. He’d been to movie premieres a few times, whenever one of his father’s Hollywood clients was on the red carpet. He’d had dinner at Spago with his parents and Gene Hackman and the movie producer Arnold Kopelson. Why any of that should make him tougher than other kids when it came to heavy emotional stuff, he wasn’t sure at the moment, but he had imagined himself to be thick-skinned for a twelve-year-old.

Holy hell, though, if he was guessing right about this—