“Yeees?” my mom says, raising one eyebrow. She can tell I’m about to ask her for something.

“Can I go to Honey’s, please? She just called—Mrs. Wine has to go out unexpectedly, and Honey asked if I can help her watch Aaron.”

“Stay home by yourselves? And watch Aaron?” my mother says.

“What? Honey does it all the time,” I say. Which is true. And it sounds like fun. I’ve never stayed home alone, never mind been in charge. “It’ll be good experience,” I tell my mother entreatingly. “Soon I can babysit for Max.”

My mother blows air up into her bangs. “You said you wanted to pack your clothes yourself this year.”

“I’ll pack as soon as I get back.”

She exhales again, and I can practically see the wheels in her head turning, weighing “responsible” (packing for myself) with “responsible” (babysitting). I stand up straighter.

“As soon as you get back,” she says, pointing her finger at me.

“As soon as I get back!” I promise, and smile my way out the door and over to the Wines’.

Mrs. Wine opens their front door with one hand, adjusting the wig sitting lopsided on her head with the other. As I enter, I see the black snood she covers her hair with when she’s in the house flung on the banister.

“Hi, Milla, sweetie,” she says breathlessly, then calling behind her: “Honey, you girls are in charge!” With that, she flies out the open door without a coat, jumps into the minivan, and speeds out of the driveway.

“Josh’s in trouble again,” Honey says, appearing from the kitchen and holding a mug. She’s wearing the jean skirt and plaid shirt from What Goes Around. “The yeshiva just called. They’ve been threatening not to let him graduate, but it sounds like this time they’re serious.”

“Whoa,” I say. “What did he do?”

“Something with Ari Schoenberg’s tests.” She shrugs. Then she grins. “But we have the house to ourselves. And Aaron. My bubbie took Miriam and Dan-Dan.”

I grin back. Honey raises her mug to me. “I just made a pot of hot chocolate. You want some?”

“Sure,” I say, following her to the kitchen.

“Hi, Aaron,” I say, crouching down. He is sitting on the tiled floor under the oval kitchen table, humming the jingle from a cereal commercial and making piles out of small toy cars. “How you doing?”

“Aaron?” Honey prompts him.

“Hello,” he says, focusing on balancing a car.

My father once explained to me that people can be autistic in different ways. He said it’s a spectrum, and this means it’s like there is a very long road that runs from downtown in the center of the city all the way to the countryside, and even though lots of people live on this road, they don’t necessarily live anywhere near each other—or even in the same kind of house. He told me this after we were at a frozen yogurt place and a boy at the table next to us leaned over the booth and asked Max when his birthday was. When Max recited the month and date, and my mom supplied the year, the boy pronounced (correctly) that Max had been born on a Thursday.