It was good he could say those things now. Better than when he was out of work and could only mention “prospects” and “you know how the economy is.” He was happier than those days, though he worried about money a lot more.

He parted the drapes, exposing the open blinds beneath, and the laser lines of sunshine beaming through the cracks seemed to slice up the room and everything in it. “Son, what’s up with this Purity Pledge thing at your mother’s church?”

My stomach fell into the crawl space under the house. The same feeling I got on the rare occasion I’d watch a movie with my parents and there’s suddenly a sex scene no one knew was coming. “It’s like, a class. We learn about ways to not, you know.”

Dad took his high-backed desk chair, swiveling to face me. In the tiny space, our knees almost touched. His legs were bare because he was in a bathrobe, T-shirt, and shorts with tube socks pulled just below his knees. His go-to work uniform these days.

The only time we’d ever come close to discussing anything remotely related to Purity Pledge was three years ago. I’d been in my room playing Gears of War and he’d gotten home from work, back when he still wore pants.

“It’s time we had a conversation,” he’d said then, closing my bedroom door. I wondered what I’d done wrong.

Instead of him listing my crimes and passing my sentence, he pulled a shiny wrapper from his shirt pocket. Held it to me, gently, like precious treasure. The impression of a ring was clearly visible through the foil packaging. “You know what this is?”

A condom. Mike Brooks stole some from his brother’s closet and showed us at lunch one day, but I only said, “Yeah.”

“You know how to use one?”

“Yeah.” A lie.

Grinning with every tooth in his head, he said, “My boy.”

He laid the loose condom on my Avengers comforter, popped the latches on his briefcase, and removed the open twelve-pack that the loosie must’ve come from. The box said they were “ribbed,” and all I could think about was summer barbecues. I liked ribs a lot.

He placed the box—one I still had tucked in the back of my underwear drawer—on my bed, too. “Then you know to always keep one with you. Gotta be safe, son. Got any questions for me?”

“Naw.”

He clapped a hand on my shoulder, winked. “Good talk.”

In his office, his face was flat. Waiting. Were we remembering different things?

“What I’m trying to understand, son, is if this Purity Pledge’s some sort of reset for you? Because I assumed you’d been, you know.” He made a fist, did this weird slow extension punch that was some signal for sex, maybe.

Focusing on the rainbow spines of the various technical manuals lining his bookshelves, I conjured the most plausible response I could manage. “Purity Pledge, it’s a, a volunteer thing. It’ll look good for, like, college applications.”