“Pretty sure I’m done with that,” I say, slurping my second cup of the night. I haven’t had a growing pain in over a year—it’s officially going to be a teeny life. Honestly, I’m relieved I won’t be cramming myself through doorways for the rest of my days like the Reverend.

“I—I wish I’d known you were coming,” Mom says.

“Don’t let me hold you up,” he says. “You’ve got babies to save. The most important work there is.” He tosses her a wink, and she blooms with an inner light. “And looking stunning doing it.”

Mom can only laugh pitifully as she taps her flat, wilted hair. “This old smock.” I battle a tidal wave of cringe as my mom falls prey to these warmed-over pickup lines.

“I only stopped by because I wanted to introduce Connor to a good friend,”—the Reverend only has good friends—“one of the ones he’s going to be helping with Meals on Wheels.”

Yesterday, my mom stunned me with the news that she’s commandeered my entire summer by making me drive hot meals to the elderly and indigent of Ambrose and Greater Noble County.

“Your friend’s come here to the diner, but still needs me to drive ’em meals?” I ask. Mom and the Reverend are momentarily speechless by my attitude. “I’m just asking!”

“Ricky Hannigan is a very independent person,” the Reverend says with forced calm. “He likes being out and about, and he likes being with people whenever possible. But the summer gets brutal and tires him, and his health goes up and down like a yo-yo. Going out is a treat for him, you understand.”

“Yes, sir,” I say as the Reverend watches me across the booth—studying me, knocking his knuckles to the tabletop as he weighs teaching me a lesson in manners.

“Ricky is a special person. To me and the town.”

“Yes, sir.”

Obediently, as if we didn’t have any will of our own, the Reverend leads Mom and me toward the exit. Vacillating as he does between menace and jollity, the Reverend sets the tune and we all dance to it. “Don’t be late for those babies!” he cries, giving my mother a hug she’ll treasure for the rest of the night and then sending her outside alone to our car. Before I can follow her out, the Reverend tugs me through a crowd of smiling, gawping sycophants until we reach a man in a motorized chair. He laughs at a table of three middle-aged women I’ve never seen before—they must be from White Eagle or somewhere farther outside of town.

“Ricky, I want you to meet a young friend of mine,” the Reverend says.

Ricky Hannigan lifts his large, round eyes and pivots his chair to me. His neck is bent slightly, pressed against the chair’s headrest. A graying, sallow-faced man, Ricky is slender and, from what I can tell, immobile from the waist down: his slightly tremoring fingers operate a control toggle on his chair. Ricky smiles—a relaxed, warm smile, not the shark’s grin the Reverend gives people. He glances me over before pivoting slowly to the Reverend and muttering, “C…cute.”