The truth was, Nate hadn’t actually thought about that. When he had pictured this trip, the farthest Nate ever got in his imagining was walking in a room someplace and seeing his dad there. Running to put his arms around him. His father bending down to muss up his hair and reaching in his pocket, maybe, for some crinkled-up article he’d cut out of a magazine about Saturn’s rings or cosmic dust. He never pictured the other part—what his dad would tell him about the gun, the shooting, why it happened, what was going to happen now. Or how things would go when he had to say good-bye, had to walk out the door again and head back home.

Frank took another drag on his cigarette and studied Nate closely. “This person you’re going to see,” he said. “I’m guessing this might be someone pretty close. I’m thinking your old man, maybe?”

Nate nodded. No point lying, when it appeared this guy knew everything already.

“And he’s in some kind of trouble, right? And you’ve taken it upon yourself to make things right.”

Nate studied the empty sleeve pinned to one side of Frank’s shirt and the weathered fingers of his one hand, holding on to the cigarette. “Something like that.”

“Don’t get me wrong, buddy,” Frank told him. “But maybe your plan needs a little more considering before you make this trip. Maybe you’ve been so dang busy figuring out how to get to your dad, you haven’t got your idea straight— what you’re going to accomplish once you’re there.”

A sick, sad feeling came over Nate then. In a quiet voice he said words he had never spoken before: “My father shot himself, but he didn’t die. He’s in a mental ward.”

After that it all spilled out: his grandfather mad because his dad wasn’t strong like him; his mother walking around like a zombie all the time; his little sister trying to make everyone happy; Larry saying they couldn’t be friends.

“The police think my mom might have done it because they haven’t found the gun. I need to ask my dad where he left his rifle, so they’ll stop blaming her. I need to help my dad. I need to be able to come home and tell my sister I saw him and he’s okay.”

Frank drew long and deep on his cigarette. “Sounds like you’ve taken it upon yourself to fix everything that’s broke in your family right now,” he said. “That’s a big job for a boy to take on. Big job for anyone.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”