“CONNOR,” Mom moans and yanks her hand out from under mine, suddenly disgusted like I sneezed on her. The unexpected obliteration of our truce sends pins and needles of anxiety up my spinal column. She presses prayer hands to her mouth. Prayer hands! Marcia Major, bringing out the big guns. “Please fix your priorities. If I were you, I’d worry less about my phone and more about these grades I’ve been seeing. Retake the SAT. Prep your application essays. You should be sick to your stomach thinking your friends’ll go off to good colleges while you end up at home, watching TV, giggling, or whatever it is you do all day while Vicky goes it alone raising Avery. I’d worry about being twenty-five someday, doing that same thing. Thirty. Forty years old, mouthing off in my kitchen about some boyfriend you think you got—”

“I do got a boyfriend—”

“You do not. If you live in my house, you do not.”

When Mom finishes, I whip my head away with a flourish not seen outside of a telenovela—she doesn’t deserve my eye contact. My neck is boiling, and I can’t summon the breath to yell back at her about how much everything she is saying sucks. I stare out of our enormous picture window onto a country road and the vast farmland where I’m trapped. The only two houses on our street are ours and the Packard Family chicken ranch. The man who runs the farm is also our local reverend…and my mom’s only friend. She refuses to hang out with the other nurses after work. She excludes anybody in her life who might warn her about what an out-of-control zealot she’s turned into.

Above Reverend Packard’s soybean fields, storm clouds mutate into a single, nauseatingly yellow mass. The Packard farmers rotate crops each year—one year corn, one year soybeans. Corn, soy, corn, soy. On corn years, there’s a hint of magical possibility in the air. When I was a kid, I’d imagine blue, scaly creatures and elves hiding between the massive stalks, plotting mischief. But on soy years—this year—the view is low and clear, and Ambrose, Illinois, is exposed for what it really is: grain elevators, churches, and that’s it.

While I gaze, hypnotized, at the road separating our home from the endless soy fields, a black minivan sails past. It’s the only car I’ve noticed since dinner began, but this is the third time I’ve seen it. The black van—its windows also blackened—has been circling our street like a buzzard. Probably lost. Nobody comes to Ambrose on purpose (except for me and my duped mother).

“This came for you,” Mom says, tapping the yellow envelope on the table.

“From Dad,” I say, sneering. “You told me already.”

“No, his present is still stuck in the mail, like I told you already. You remember Ricky Hannigan? You delivered his Meals on Wheels?” Pins and needles swarm into my fingers like fireflies over a marsh. Normally, I’d be grateful for the subject change, but it squeezes my stomach just to hear Mr. Hannigan’s name. Ricky Hannigan was an older client who received hot meals at home from yours truly every weekend since school let out.