It doesn’t make sense. How is this possible? I study the card closely, flip it over, flip it back, searching for anything that might reveal it to be a fake. But it’s real.

It’s fucking real.

The slices of Wonder Bread tear when I spread Dad’s glutinous natural peanut butter on them. I ravenously stuff hunks of the white-and-brown conglomeration into my mouth and wash it down with milk, barely pausing to chew.

I’m 1-Y!

How is this possible?

I go into the garage, my cheeks bulging with Wonder Bread and peanut butter. When I came home with Alan before, the MG wasn’t in its usual spot. Something about that felt odd, but there were too many other things to focus on. Now I see that not only is the sports car gone, so are the snow tires and the detachable plastic side windows that go on it in cold weather. And so is the brass knock-off hammer for loosening the wire wheel hubs.

Through the open garage door, I see a car stop at the foot of the driveway. Mom and the paterfamilias get out. Mom nods at me and goes up the walk to the front door. The paterfamilias comes up the driveway, then stops. We both stare at the dark oil-stained patch of concrete where the MG used to sit.

Memory fragments filter through my mind: Norman C. Brown . . . the heavyset man in the blue blazer . . . “Quite the collector of fine British motoring.” The metal badge on the grille of the red Jaguar that said Bay Shore Sports Car Club. “She’s a beauty, just as you promised.”

I hold up the yellow draft card for the paterfamilias to see. “You are not to say anything to anyone,” he sternly commands. “Not your friends, not a draft counselor. No one. Understand?”

Don’t say anything to your mother about Hazel.

Don’t tell anyone at the bank where the coins really come from.

I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention Sharon.

It’s another one of his scams. Only this one’s entirely for my benefit. The change-of-address form, the library card, the DMV form — it was all so that I would fall under the jurisdiction of the Bay Shore draft board, so that Mr. Brown could arrange to have me classified as 1-Y: only required to serve during a national emergency. Dad traded his precious MG for my sorry ass.

It’s amazing! It’s un-fucking-believable!

It feels like a harbinger for how it will be from now on. How I’ll never look at Dad the old way again. I’ve blamed him for so much. But what if sometimes there is no one to blame, because no one is at fault? Sometimes things happen that will never truly be resolved or settled, and the best you can do is just get on with it and make your own peace.