“I’m gonna head back.” I hate saying it. I want so badly to forge ahead to my ladylove, but Lake Juliette is at least eighty miles to the north and west, out many narrow roads (not all of them paved, according to the map) in the wilderness. I could try to hitch there, but I doubt I’d make it by five, the time Robin has already warned me that my visit with her will end. And even if I were to miraculously make it to the camp by dark, I’d have nowhere to crash tonight.

Meanwhile, now that my personal-moral-code conscientious objector application has no chance of succeeding, I need to get back to Long Island in time to meet with Charles on Monday and figure out what the alternatives are.

The rising chorus of cicadas fills the air. A man in overalls driving a red tractor slowly passes, pulling a wagon stacked high with bales of pale-green hay. Tinsley closes her notebook and gathers her coins. “I’m going back, too.” Her eyes slide toward me. “That okay with you?”

A pair of blackbirds lands on an overhead electric line. A boxy 1950s Chevy sedan rolls past. The two gray-haired ladies inside stare at us. It can be a long, slow trip for a guy hitching alone. Most people won’t pick you up. But hitching with a petite, sexy-looking blond chick? Like going from a Ford Model T to Craig Breedlove’s Spirit of America.

But why isn’t Tinsley going to the farm? Why not wait with Barry in Kemptville for Zach? Why risk the unknowns that come with trying to hitch all the way home? But then I think back to last night on the mattress, and to something I’ve felt ever so slightly simmering since she strolled out of Barry’s house yesterday and asked if I’d mind if she came with us to Canada: a gradually growing inclination that — sometime last night or this morning — became a decision.

I glance curiously at Barry.

He picks a speck of tobacco off his lip and gazes off. “So be it.”

An awkward parting. Tinsley gives Barry a hug. When I shake his hand, his eyes don’t meet mine. Has he interpreted Tinsley’s decision to mean she’d rather be with me than him? Are those averted eyes the gesture of someone who thinks he’s been replaced? I feel bad. He’s my cousin, the guy I grew up admiring. The one who has struggled so mightily with his demons for so long. Even though I had nothing to do with Tinsley’s decision, I feel as guilty as if the decision had been mine.

My hand still clasping Barry’s, a wave of familial affection prompts me to pull him close for a hug. “Have fun up there. Catch you on the flip side, okay?”

“The music festival,” he reminds me. “Three weeks.”