“The Strawberry Moon is on her way,” she said.

“Maybe I’m feeling it.”

“Maybe,” she said, skeptically.

“I think I need to grow up,” I said, and she didn’t respond.

I would start by making myself, and everyone else, breakfast.

I walked a few blocks to Food Carnival, bracing myself for the extreme stimulation of death-white lights and flour-sack-shaking bachata.

Every aisle was an algorithm of my hunger and nostalgia and dumbness:

Kraft mac and cheese

Hi-C

Froot Loops

Choco Tacos

organic polenta

avocados

guava nectar

mantecadas

harina de maiz

enchonadas

lard

hindquarters

Someday I could go strolling down the coast of Maine and plunk blueberries into a pail and stir my batter near a hearth, but I had to start where I was. I grabbed a plastic container of blueberries and paper sack of flour and went home to my brethren.

Blithe was in his sleeping bag on the couch, talking to his parents on speaker.

“Honey, no matter what’s going on, we’ll always love you,” said his mom. “And you don’t have to worry about getting back to work too soon because we called and the beta writers can patch up the rest of the story line for your pilot. But we did send you the pad just in case.”

“You did?” His voice lacked affect.

“Yep, and I’ve been keeping it for you,” I said loudly.

“None of you understand me at all,” he whined.

“Honey, you’re going to be fine,” his mom said.

It wore on my body to listen to such love expressed to someone who had expressed his hatred mere days ago.

I made the pancakes and we ate outside. Blithe chowed down. The Witch picked out all the blueberries and ate them, leaving holey remains. Aiden suspended his carb avoidance and didn’t comment on my technique. We left a plate for the S-H covered in plastic.

Without being tangled in Rachel’s celebrity vibes, I had all this excess energy—I was not overdrawn—and while Aiden loaded the dishwasher, I went running through the neighborhood, down streets that appeared shrouded in desolation when I was transitioning without anything as disruptive as hope, past the bakery and the chiming church bells and the pork store, all comforting because they’d been around since before the neighborhood trended, down toward the industrial warehouses, under blooming, arching trees that I hadn’t registered before, around people walking their own damn dogs, and into a hazy stupor of long strides on hard ground.

Back at home, Aiden leaned against the counter.

“Hey, I need some more clothes, bro, let’s go to ift,” he said.

“I’ll get Blithe ready after I meditate,” I responded, happy to be a capitalist for a day.

In a sour-green subway car, a mother was explaining to her child, dressed in all polka dots, like a young Pen, how to avoid the wrong cars.