“The sport of peacekeeping,” I say with a smile. “I can’t say I’m very good at that one either. So your mom and dad . . .”

“They’re not together anymore,” Lander says, answering a question that I hadn’t actually intended to ask. “And when he left her she found new ways of martyring herself. This time she martyred herself for me. But that’s just the way she was, always looking for a cross to die on.”

“You’re talking about her in the past tense.” I stare at the floor as the statement leaves my lips. I know his mother is dead and I hate that I’m forced to feign ignorance. This moment feels something close to pure, and I hate poisoning it with this deceit.

“She died,” Lander says, his voice completely cold. “Cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

Lander stares out the window, not answering.

“Did you love her?” I ask quietly.

“I did love her. I respected her too. But I didn’t always admire her.”

“And your father?” I ask. “How do you feel about him?”

“My father,” Lander says with a dry laugh. “Now there’s a man only a stranger could love. But respecting him? I suppose that depends on your definition of the word. In a way everyone respects my father, particularly his enemies.”

“Are you his enemy?”

“I’m his family,” Lander says vaguely. “Words like ‘enemy’ and ‘friend’ don’t apply so well when you’re talking about family. A family’s conflicts, resentments, and affections are rooted in such a deep history. That’s the distinction. When we argue with a friend or lover it’s because we disagree with something they’ve said or done. Their offenses are exterior events. When we argue with family it’s because of disagreements that are so old they’ve become part of our fundamental nature.”

I think about that for a moment. My mother was the only family I ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I hadn’t been given nearly enough opportunities to disagree with her. Resent her? Ignore her? Yes, I’m certainly guilty of that. But if things had been different, if I had been allowed to grow up with her, what arguments would we have had? Would they have been over my curfew? Over what I could or couldn’t wear to school? Or would they have been more fundamental? Did my mother and I have similar political views? Did we have different views on the importance of science or higher education?

I never asked her. My knowledge of my mother is that of a ten-year-old.

“You’re shaking again,” he says.

The feeling of Lander’s hand, now on my back, is disturbingly soothing.

“When you were younger,” I say slowly, “were you ever afraid of your father?”