Then we both just sort of stood there, waiting for each other to do something. Dad and I didn’t spend much time alone together, and while Mom wasn’t a ton of fun to be around lately, she did manage to get dinner together most nights and force us all to sit down at the table. Left alone, Dad and I didn’t really know how to handle dinner or each other.

“Well,” said Dad. “How about I see if I can rustle up something from the freezer?” He turned around and opened the freezer drawer, began rooting around in it. “Want a burrito?”

Standing there, hunched over the freezer, holding up a frozen burrito, Dad had never looked so tired to me. I wasn’t sure how a back could look tired, but somehow it did. Dad’s blue striped button-down looked tired. The faded impression of his wallet in his pants pocket looked tired. All of it, tired. In the glare of the bright kitchen light, I noticed that his hair was getting thin in the back. I could see his pale scalp through it.

“I’m not very hungry.”

He turned around and stood up. “Oh, really?”

“No. In fact, I think I might just go to my room.”

“If you want, we could get pizza or something. Or call for Indian? Does any of that sound good?”

“You can,” I said, “I’m not hungry.”

He was trying. I could tell he was trying. But I just didn’t think I could sit at the table with him tonight, not talking, all by ourselves. I’d not ask him about the mural, and he’d not answer me. I’d not tell him about Jasper, and we’d not talk about Sam. It was really exhausting, I’d found, not talking.

For a minute, staring at his stubbly face, his broad square shoulders, I remembered how big he used to seem to me. Like the strongest man in the world. He used to let me climb him—he’d grab my hands and I’d plant my little feet on his shinbones and walk straight up his body, all the way into his arms. That seemed like an impossible memory now, something I’d dreamed up.

“Well,” he said suddenly, “if you don’t want anything special, I guess I’ll just have myself a sandwich.”

I nodded and waved and left the room, feeling a mixture of relief and guilt. I put my pajamas back on, climbed into bed, and turned the lights out, wishing I could fall right to sleep, escape this horrible day. Maybe, somehow, I’d feel better tomorrow. Maybe things would magically change.