“I just think of something to look forward to. I think to myself, ‘If I can just make it to that next thing, I’ll be all right.’” She reached for my hand and held it. “In two weeks, we’re graduating. Then there’s summer, and then we’ll be in college.”

“I won’t be as far away as you are.”

“You don’t ever have to come home if you don’t want to,” she said. “You won’t ever have to even see any of them.”

“What about Arch?”

“Forget about him for now.”

She squeezed my hand. I looked over at her. Without thinking, I leaned across the console and kissed her. She pushed me away, fleetingly wincing.

“Oh God,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

She calmed herself. The flash of horror that had come over her face melted into pity.

I hid my face in my hands.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You’re upset. People do crazy things when they’re upset.”

I couldn’t bear to look at her.

“I wish I could just die right now,” I said.

“You don’t mean that.”

If we hadn’t been so far from home, I’d have jumped out of the car and run away.

“Let me take you to the carriage house,” she said. “Mother’s sleeping. You won’t have to see her. I’ll help you pack your things. Jamie will help too. You can drive the Jeep out to the farm after that.”

“I don’t think I can go back there.”

“Most of life is doing things we don’t really want to do, Charlie,” she said. “Once you accept that, life gets a lot easier.”

She put her sunglasses back on.

“It’s only a couple of weeks.”

I nodded. She started the car and drove back down the Parkway toward Highway 100. When we got to the house, Jamie was waiting for us in the driveway.

“Welcome to the family, brother,” he said.

twelve

I spent a torturous two weeks living at the farm, rising early in the morning so I could begin the commute from Leiper’s Fork before Mr. Haltom and my mother woke, going straight to my room when I came home, emerging only for meals, during which I said as little as possible and left the table as soon as I was finished eating. At Yeatman, I overheard remarks muttered behind Jamie’s and my backs in hallways and classrooms. None of this seemed to bother Jamie. Still, I felt ashamed around him and tried to avoid him without seeming to be aloof. It wasn’t hard; the long drive back and forth made it easy for me to disappear.

Arch showed up unannounced at the farm the day before graduation. His magnanimity in the face of my sulking made me feel like a huge brat. Maybe I was.