“Oh, yes, of course. But it is a huge change to go from Dad’s girlfriend to stepmother.”

“Are you really, truly going to stay in Austin? Peter’s graduating in a few months and maybe he’ll want to go back to Canada and you’ll go with him.”

Mike looks at him with a sad, knowing smile. “Little man. Would it make you sad if I left?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to go. I want us to go fishing, and—” And all the things Dad doesn’t have time to do with me because he works all the time.

“Sometimes…I think I’ll go back to Canada with Peter. Or even back to Slovakia. My money would last a lot longer there than in Austin, when I want to retire.” He sits down across from Grant. “But, Grant, you have your parents here. If I leave, it really won’t matter. You understand? Your father and your mother love you very much.”

“Yeah,” he says, but he lets the tone of doubt shine through.

“Do not be giving me the whole ‘they don’t understand me’ stuff,” Mike says. “You know that’s not so.”

“You listen to me, but they don’t.”

“We are friends. But I am friends with your parents, too, and so I will listen to you but not listen to you complain about them. You are the center of their world, you and Julia.”

“Peter should hang out with my dad, and they could silently work on their endless projects and you and I could go fish. It’s a better arrangement.” And Grant knows as soon as he says this he shouldn’t, that it’s somehow unfair to both Peter and his father. But, to him, it’s true.

“If everyone was exactly like their parents, how dull the world would be,” Mike says, trying to lighten the moment.

Grant takes a deep breath. “I want to tell you something, but I shouldn’t. Not now. Not with everything you’re dealing with. Did Peter tell you what I asked him for help with?”

Mike slowly shakes his head, and Grant remains silent. Grant can hear the quiet ticking of the clock in the breakfast nook. It’s an old timepiece Mike brought from Slovakia. He laughed at Grant when Grant once told him he wasn’t sure his family owned a clock, what with clocks already in their phones and ovens and cable boxes.

“You tell me and make me forget my troubles, OK?”

“Someone emailed me anonymously. They told me to look somewhere I used to hide toys and stuff. In the woods. I went there and they’d left a note for me. It said Mom and Dad were lying to me.”

“Lying about what?”

“I don’t know.” He drums his fingers on the table, nervous.