“I don’t know,” I say, looking away. “I mean, I liked it when I visited, but we don’t really know anybody there.”

We went to London one summer when I was six or seven years old, and I still kind of remember it. There were big red buses and Mom made a big deal about riding on the top deck. Everything tasted funny. They put vinegar on their fries. People always say that it rains in London all the time, but it didn’t rain once while I was there. It’s just that the sun didn’t shine much either—it was mostly gray. It was the middle of summer and I had to wear a sweater. The best thing I saw was a shop that sold umbrellas and canes and stuff like that—some of them had swords inside. That seemed really cool when I was six.

“Well, if you don’t want to move to London, you should tell him.”

“He never listens to me.”

“He doesn’t listen to me either.” Mom puts her hand on my arm. “But maybe if we both . . . We need to put up a united front,” she says.

“What does that mean?”

“We need to stick together. If he talks to you about it, if he asks you what you think, just tell him the truth. Tell him what you told me.”

The next day, I go to Jake’s apartment and we spend all afternoon playing NBA 2K. Jake beats me pretty much every time. I tell him about London, and my dad’s job, and what my mom wants me to say. Jake likes my dad, or at least he wants to be like him. When he’s older he wants to make a lot of money, he wants to be tall and rich, so he thinks my dad has it all figured out.

One of the things I like about Jake is that nothing surprises him. I think that’s because he has an older sister. Jennifer is already in college, she’s a sophomore at Brown, and whenever she comes home “she tells it to me like it really is,” Jake says. “A lot of parents are going through this kind of thing. This is when it happens.”

“What do you mean? When what happens?”

“Jennifer says, it’s when the kids grow up. That’s when the parents start wondering if they even like each other anymore.”

“My parents like each other.” But even as I say it, I don’t know if it’s true. “I mean, I don’t feel like we’re very grown-up. All we do is play video games.”

“My dad plays this all the time,” Jake says. “He kicks my butt.”

But it feels good talking to Jake. It’s like, with him, everything that happens, whatever you’re going through, has a pretty normal explanation.

“You know why your mom won’t let you have a phone?” he says. “Jennifer thinks it’s because she doesn’t have a job—she’s overinvolved. That’s why she doesn’t want you to grow up, because then she wouldn’t have anything to do.”