Around Robin’s neck is the sterling-silver love pendant from Tiffany’s that I’d planned to give her last summer at Lake Juliette. When I reach over and tuck a few errant strands of her hair behind her ear, she turns and briefly smiles. She says Samuel’s out of the picture, and given how solid things between us have been for the past eight months, there’s no reason to doubt her. And I told her about Tinsley. It seemed like the right thing to do. I didn’t want to live with the idea of being like my father and keeping something like that a secret. I guess there are two ways to look at the examples our parents set. You can learn from them what to do, or you can learn what not to do.

Anyway, Robin was cool about Tinsley. In a weird way I think it was good that Robin had her fling with Samuel. Somehow it feels like it’s made what we have stronger.

“Has your dad said anything more about Antonia?” she asks.

“I know he’s been playing a lot of tennis tournaments in New Jersey, but he’s still living at home most of the time. Alan’s got three more years of school. Maybe he’s decided to stick around till then.” As long as Dad continues to do right by Mom and Alan, who am I to say what else he should do?

And even though I’ve moved away, I know I’ve got to stay involved in my brother’s life, too. Alan and I talk on the phone now and then, mostly about what amusement rides he’s gone on and the shows he’s watched. The funny thing is, the kid who never wanted to talk in person turns into a chatterbox on the phone. Go figure.

Robin’s hands are in the precise ten-and-two position on the steering wheel. It’s strange to think that less than a year ago, my hands were on Odysseus’s steering wheel while I tripped my brains out on Orange Sunshine and drove us from Cambridge to Long Island. It feels bizarre to think that tripping freak was me. Hard to imagine these days that I’d ever impulsively drop acid, then get in a car and drive down a busy highway for hours. Or be so reckless that I’d risk being drafted instead of putting in the work to apply to college. Sometimes it feels like those are the memories of someone else. It makes me wonder why it is that even when we’re not sure of ourselves or what we’re doing, we can still insist on being so firm in our beliefs. Is it because it’s too frightening to admit that we may never know anything for certain?