“It’s Iowa,” said the other guy. And then the music started swelling like movie music does when you know you’re supposed to care a lot about what’s happening, and that made me feel like crying, so I turned the TV off.

Once the room was silent, I thought about how unfair it was that I’d spent so many hours distracted. Jasper was probably wishing she could do the very same thing, fall into movies all day, only she didn’t have any way to escape herself. I could hide from my memories, maybe. I could bury myself in blankets, disappear. Jasper couldn’t.

Because what she had said was true—she was still in the middle of her disaster, and as far as I could tell, she was stuck. There was no end in sight for her. I couldn’t—no matter how I tried—imagine a way for her story to right itself. It was more than I could handle even to think about it, and Jasper had to live it—had to wake up in it each morning and go to sleep in it each night. How did she do it, and keep smiling like she did?

So I decided I’d try to play Jasper’s sad game, and turned the TV back on. I found the song she’d been talking about on YouTube, and then I turned out the lights and closed the blinds and lay on the couch, listening to it.

It was a sad song for sure, about widows and wars and stuff. But also it wasn’t a sad song at all. “There is a crack,” the song said, “. . . a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” I thought about that—about the light that shines through broken things. I found myself listening to the song over and over. And for some reason the thought of light getting in made me think about that Iowa movie with the two guys in love, and heaven, and cornfields. And that made me think about the garage, of course, and Dad. Which got me wondering what it felt like for him, to paint something like that, to look up and see his thoughts on the ceiling. I wondered if maybe that was Dad’s version of the sad game. And even though my thoughts were all muddled and didn’t make much sense, I found myself feeling a little better. Because at least I wasn’t thinking about fighting with Jasper.

Late in the afternoon, I dragged myself off the couch and got dressed. Because eventually, my parents were going to come home, and I’d need to act like a normal person for an hour or two. But when a car pulled into the drive, it was Dad, alone, and he said that Mom had a late meeting, and we were on our own for dinner.