“Apparently not.”

“Tell me you didn’t bug Dad for about three weeks to let you buy some issue of Dead Man Walking or something like that.”

“The Walking Dead. And did Dad let me?”

“No. It was like fifty dollars. Maybe they have it here. Go look.”

“I know what you’re doing,” I say, feeling suddenly angry.

“What? What am I doing?”

“You think I’m going to talk to those kids and make friends. I’m not going to talk to those kids.”

“Calm down, Ben. All I said was, why don’t you check out the comic books. I offered to buy you something.”

But the same thing happens at the swimming pool. About five minutes walk from Granma’s house there’s a neighborhood pool in the middle of a park, and when we get back from Half Price Books, sweating like pigs in the old Volvo, Mom says, “I could really use a dip.” So we put on our swimming things and Mom pulls a dress over her head and we walk down the middle of the road to the park.

The neighborhood around Granma’s house is really quiet: all the cars are parked in driveways, and there are these big trees on the sidewalk that arch over the road, so it’s not too hot. It’s about five o’clock and it’s like you can feel the sun over the trees trying to get in.

It’s crazy, two days ago I was in New York City, walking down Broadway, and now I’m here.

There are kids at the pool, splashing around, or lying on the grass by the side—even though the grass has ants in it. Some of the boys wear T-shirts even in the water. But I don’t see kids on their own. Everybody has somebody to talk to. And I realize that for two days I haven’t talked to anybody who isn’t Mom or Granma. It’s amazing how much noise kids make. You really notice it when you’re not part of it. And all the noise sounds different, because of the water, kind of louder and farther away at the same time. Mom jumps in the pool and swims a couple of lengths but then she comes out again and lies on a towel with her sunglasses on.

“I just like feeling myself get dry,” she says.

“How long are we going to stay here?” I ask.

“We just got here, Ben. Go swim or something. Find some kids to play with. There are a lot of kids here your age.” I think her eyes are closed, though it’s hard to tell, under the sunglasses; she sounds sleepy.

“Mom, that’s not how it works.”

“How does it work?” But she’s not really paying attention.

“It just doesn’t work—you have to know somebody. Nobody wants to hang out with some weird kid they don’t know.”

“You’re not that weird. Give me five minutes,” she says, still with her eyes closed. “For about the past two months I’ve been dreaming of these five minutes.”