“She has a lot to do,” I say, trying to stick up for her. “She’s always busy.”

“What does she do?”

Jake’s mom is an accountant; she works for a company that publishes different magazines—there are a lot of weird magazines, like Antiques Monthly and Bird & Bait, lying around at his house. The truth is, I don’t really know what my mom does. I don’t think about it much. When I’m at school, I’m at school, and when I’m home, she hangs out with me.

“I think she goes to classes sometimes,” I say. “She picks me up from school, she makes dinner.”

“That’s what I mean,” Jake says. “She’s overinvolved. That’s why she won’t let you get a phone. It’s like, when we’re at your house, she notices everything we do.”

“Phones are really the end of civilization,” I tell him. “Nobody ever talks anymore, they just play with their phones.”

“Talking is boring,” he says, so we play some more NBA 2K, and he beats me again.

About a week later, my dad comes home. Usually on his first night back, we eat at Carmine’s, this loud, old-fashioned Italian restaurant a few blocks from our apartment. All the dishes are so big that everybody shares. The walls are full of black-and-white photographs of old famous people, like movie stars and boxers and politicians. I always ask my dad to tell me who they are: Joe Louis, Frank Sinatra, Mayor Koch. My dad isn’t easy to talk to, but he likes to tell me stories—he knows a lot of information. Anyway, Carmine’s is my favorite restaurant. Sometimes we go there on my birthday, too: the waiters bring out a big cake and everybody sings.

But this time, when my dad comes home and before we go to Carmine’s, Mom says, “I’m going to leave you two alone for a minute. He can explain this one,” and she grabs her handbag, puts on her summer coat, and walks out.

“Jenny,” my dad says, following her. The trouble with our apartment is that if you want to walk out of the house, you still have to wait by the elevator—you can’t just slam the door and disappear. So my dad and mom end up having this argument in the hallway while she waits for the elevator. I can hear their voices, even from our apartment—my mom does most of the talking. Sometimes my dad says something and then she starts again. I just stand in the living room, trying not to listen, and eventually my dad comes back in.

“What are you supposed to explain?” I ask.

It’s about five o’clock in the afternoon; his suitcase is still in the hallway. It feels like everything is happening pretty fast; nobody is doing the stuff they normally do, where you’re just in a groove and everything is kind of expected and fine. I don’t know what’s going to happen.

“I’ve got to go away again next week,” he says. “I’ve really just come home to pack up a few things.”