I suddenly feel kind of stupidly happy.

“You ready to go, Son?” he asks. “You don’t get mornings like this in London at this time of year.”

My shoes are by the door, and while I’m putting them on, Mom says, “When are you going to bring him back?”

Dad says, “I don’t know. I don’t really have any plans.”

“I guess what I’m asking is, should I get something ready for lunch?”

“It’s up to Ben,” Dad says, and for some reason, Mom loses it.

“Can’t you make any decision that involves some commitment to other people?”

“Jenny,” Granma calls out from the kitchen. “Just let them go.”

It must have rained overnight, because the lawn is wet and the trees that stretch over the road are dripping a little—sometimes a few drops hit you in the face as you bike past. But the sky is totally blue. It’s probably sixty-five degrees, just cool enough that you don’t mind working up a sweat. First we just bike around the neighborhood; it’s very flat and all the roads are empty, because it’s Saturday morning. My dad is good at biking without his hands—he’s got a real racing bike that makes you lean over for the handles, but he can also lean back in his seat and pedal without holding on. He looks funny—like he’s relaxed and concentrating at the same time. He can even turn corners that way.

“You’re just showing off,” I tell him.

Around ten o’clock he gets hungry again. “That’s the thing about jet lag,” he says. “I wake up at three in the morning and want coffee and a piece of toast. By nine o’clock I’m ready for lunch.”

We stop off at a diner and order a pancake breakfast, with bacon and eggs, the whole works. Dad puts a lot of Tabasco sauce on everything—he really is hungry. They do milkshakes there, too, and I ask him, “Can I have a milkshake?”

“At ten in the morning?” he says, but then changes his mind. “Sure, why not.”

When the shake comes, he asks for another straw and sticks it in. “This is what they call a stealth tax,” he says. “The government always needs a cut.” He sucks in a mouthful (it’s chocolate and Oreo), and leaves the rest to me. After that, we get busy eating; all you can hear is the sound of knives and forks on our plates and the background noise of the restaurant—the waiters talking to each other and some of the other diners making conversation. Some guy is on his phone, trying to order a new cartridge for his printer. It turns out to be pretty complicated.

“Coach Tomski seems like a nice guy,” Dad says eventually, just to break the silence. Maybe he feels he should talk about my life.

“He’s a good teacher.” But I feel funny saying it like that, like I’m being disloyal or something, but I can’t tell to whom.

“That kid Pete can play.” It’s like he’s just fishing, hoping for a bite.