Corey was sunk into the couch. It was nine-thirty at night on Good Friday, the long weekend and Easter break only just begun. He glanced up from the pile of comics he’d brought back with him from Tim’s. “Nah,” he said, “I don’t think so.”

Fitz found himself feeling jittery suddenly and he couldn’t have said why, whether it was an aftereffect of the drug or the result of too much of everything, so he went to the cabinet and poured himself an Irish whiskey, no ice, just for the taste of it, a luxury he rarely allowed himself. After a minute he came back into the room, settled into the easy chair with his drink and picked up the newspaper. There was a listing of Good Friday services, now all over with, at the top of the back page, and as he scanned the column, whatever he’d been feeling—this post-trip malaise, Corey, Joanie, Tim, the shock of Julius breaking madly for the street, Fanchon—began to dissipate and everything became usual again. He was home. Joanie was in bed. The paper felt heavy in his hands. It was past Corey’s bedtime.

“Dad?” Corey was looking over the cover of his comic—Batman, with his black mask and bat’s ears.

“What?”

“What’s wrong with Mom?”

“Nothing. She’ll be fine. She just—well, I think she had maybe one beer too many and that made her sleepy. You know how that is—remember your grandpa that time?”

Corey didn’t say anything, but he didn’t go back to his comic either. After a minute he lifted both his feet to the coffee table, which he wasn’t allowed to do, and set the comic aside. He seemed to be grinning—or maybe it was a grimace. The tightest smile, and then a pucker of the lips. “That’s not what Jackie said.”