Back at Fellis’s, Beth was washing dishes. Fellis sat at the kitchen table, his hair pressed to one side, talking with his mouth full.

Beth looked at me as if she wanted to know where I’d gone, but instead she said, “You forgot to shut off the shower.”

I stepped toward the hallway and bathroom.

“It’s off now,” she said. “Sit. I made you a plate. There’s more toast too if you want it.”

I thanked her—either for turning off the shower or for the food, I wasn’t sure which—and I grabbed the plate and sat.

Beth got a broom from the pantry closet. She hit at Fellis’s legs for him to move. She swept under the table.

“Why is there spaghetti everywhere?” she said.

Fellis took a sip of pink juice. He stood and demonstrated with a dirty rag. “Dee was holding the box last night—you know, to make a snack—and he got a big leg cramp and he goes, ‘UGH!’ and he threw the box up into the air.”

Beth laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”

She leaned the broom against the wall and picked up the rag. She lobbed it onto the counter. Over the garbage she turned the broom pan, and spaghetti and dirt scattered.

I was chewing a bite of egg, laughing still, when Beth said, “What is this?”

She reached into the garbage and pulled out an envelope.

“Didn’t I ask you to mail this?” she said.

“I forgot,” Fellis said. He kept eating.

“Why is it in the garbage?”

“It must’ve fell in.”

Fellis stood and grabbed more bacon from a white plate next to the stove.

Beth stared at him as he sat back at the table.

I got up and asked for the envelope. “I’ll go put it in the mail,” I said, but Beth wouldn’t look at me.

“You want to get charged for your tuition?” Beth said. “If they don’t know you’re Native they’ll process you like a white person.”

“I ain’t white.” Fellis wiped his greasy mouth with his shirt.

“I’m surprised they haven’t already charged you,” Beth said. “You were supposed to have given the form to the school months ago.”

“Beth,” I said. “Let me see it. I’ll go put it in the mail.”

“I ain’t white,” Fellis said. “So they better not.”

“No,” Beth said to me. “You sit and eat. Fellis will do it.”

“Dee said he’ll do it.”

“Put this in the mail!”

Fellis stood and snatched the envelope from his mother. He brought it to the trash and stuffed it down with the spaghetti and dirt and eggshells and bacon fat.

“I quit school,” he said, and he sat back at the table.

“Quit?” Beth said.

“What did you expect?” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing there. I didn’t even want to go. I did it to stop your nagging.”

“You didn’t even try,” Beth said.

“For fuck’s sake,” Fellis said. “I didn’t belong there. For two fucking weeks I sat in that philosophy class with that short fuckwit of a professor—who all he did was sit in a chair in front of the class swishing cough drop after cough drop around in his mouth—and I tried to pay attention but when I realized I’d spent two weeks—two fucking weeks!—thinking we were talking about that clothing brand—what’s it called,” he snapped his fingers, “—Aeropostale, yeah, that’s it—but we were actually talking about some guy named Aristotle, I knew I was screwed. So I bolted midclass. Even left my books.”