She spun round, put her legs under her and came up so fast he had to take a step back just to get out of her way, and there she was, right in his face. “Parties. I’ve had it with parties. With everything. With this whole place. It’s destroying us, Fitz, and it’s destroying Corey too. Jackie’s a bad influence, and you know it. Nancy, for Christ’s sake—”

He wasn’t thinking clearly, but what she was saying was wrong, so very wrong. This wasn’t about Corey or Jackie either—it was about Ken, it was about Fanchon, it was about Lori. He said, “I’m not going.”

And that was it, that was the moment that led inevitably to this one, to the buzz of the lawn mower as it tore at the tall grass and the downed branches that weren’t supposed to be there while Joanie, all the way across the yard and up the stairs in the shadowy theater of their room, put things in suitcases and paper bags and carried them down to the station wagon that was going to take her and his son to the Jersey Shore. For the summer. Just for the summer. And he didn’t really need to say goodbye to Corey at this point because he was busy now and everything in the world was very bright and present and he’d already done that three nights in succession and assured him he’d be there as soon as he could get away—after the party, after the party for sure—and that they’d go crabbing and take his grandfather’s boat out to fish for stripers and blues the way they used to.

He was running sweat. He could taste the salt at the corners of his mouth, his own salt, the salt his body took in daily and daily expelled, and felt the sting of it in his eyes. Grasshoppers arced across his field of vision, the grass flattened and yielded. He kept going, kept pushing, working furiously toward a self-imposed terminus, which would coincide with the moment the station wagon rolled off down the drive and disappeared through the gate, and he wasn’t going to look up, he promised himself that, because if he looked up it would confuse things in a way that was going to be hurtful to all parties concerned. He and Joanie had already said what they had to say and he’d made his pledges and taken his vows and gotten a reprieve at least for now, at least till the party was over, and then he’d catch a train or a bus or get Charlie or Rick to drive him . . .