It was true. Lily caught glimpses of kids around Sean when she would go pick him up after school, but if he had any real friends, he hadn’t brought them home.

“Well, now we have to ask, thanks to you,” Lily said, pulling a bathrobe around her shoulders. Silas shrugged.

“Do what you want.”

“I don’t want to do any of this.”

“Say it once more, Lil, for the seats in the back.” Silas put his book down on his lap and looked at her.

“You know what I mean.”

“Sure,” he said, and went back to reading.

Lily paused in front of her son’s room. She couldn’t hear anything through the door, but she hadn’t been able to in years. Not since Sean started listening to everything through his gigantic black headphones. One time Silas called them his “Princess Leia look,” and Sean didn’t speak to him for a week.

Lily thought about stopping by Mickey’s room first, to talk about this Ruth girl and see if Mickey really wanted to bring a friend to New Hampshire. But she told Silas she had to talk to Sean, and she did, if she wanted to make her point. She wondered if other moms were this nervous before talking to their teenage sons or if she was the worst one there ever was, and then she knocked.

“Sean?” she said, opening the door a crack after hearing some kind of grunt.

“What?”

Lily opened the door all the way and stepped inside. The room felt smaller than it had when they first bought the house. Sean had covered the walls in pictures of bands Lily didn’t know: men with sour faces and haunted eyes. She would’ve preferred Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue pullouts, which was saying something.

“Did your father talk to you about New Hampshire?”

She knew full well that he hadn’t, but she threw Silas under the bus anyway. Habit.

“I’m packing, Mom. Fuck. Relax.”

“Hey!” Lily said. “Language. And that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Sean shrugged. He didn’t ask her what she was talking about; he just looked back at his screen. He seemed to be doing five things at once.

“Is any of that homework?” she asked from over his shoulder. Sean clicked a couple of buttons, and the screen went black.

“What do you need, Mom?” he asked, looking up at her.

“Your sister is bringing a friend to New Hampshire this year. Your father okayed it without talking to me, so apparently that’s what’s happening now. I’m here to see if you want to bring a friend too.”

Sean cocked his head, and for a second, he looked like he did when he was eight and couldn’t understand how the shark got into the aquarium. But he looked away before Lily could get deep enough into the memory to siphon out any of its flavor.