Alice looked at the cereal, looked away, not sure how she was going to manage to swallow even a mouthful. She felt sapped of energy, way down in the dumps on top of seriously sleep deprived. She’d snuck out of the house last night after Maggie and Richard had gone to bed, walked down to the bonfire pit at the beach. No Tommy. She’d sat there, waited around for two hours. Still no Tommy. No call or text either. He must’ve made a night of it with the cute redhead from Harvard, she thought bitterly. They probably taught each other the lyrics to “Onward Crimson,” made snickery comments about Yale. For a guy who bitched about his dad so much, he sure was eager to do his bidding.

Alice watched Charlie pour a bit of salt from the shaker onto the tabletop, trace a giant C in it with the tip of her index finger. “I’m homesick,” Alice announced suddenly.

“Oh yeah?” Charlie said, running her hand over the salt, blotting out the letter, making Alice think of that toy they used to fight over in the old days, Etch A Sketch. “Well, I’m homesicker.”

Alice must’ve looked as surprised as she felt, because Charlie said, “What? I’m not allowed to be homesick, too?”

“No, you’re allowed to be. Of course you’re allowed to be. I just didn’t think you did that emotion, didn’t think that it was, like, in your repertoire. Plus, I was under the impression that you loved it here so much.”

“I do, I do. I really like it here but . . .” trailing off, shrugging. “You know.”

Alice nodded that she did.

“The worst part is,” Charlie continued, “that there’s no home to be sick for anymore.”

“I’m sure Mr. D’Espo has rented out our duplex back in Cambridge.”

“Gem that it was.”

“It wasn’t so bad.”

“No,” Charlie agreed, with a sigh, “it wasn’t.”

“And dad’s somewhere in Japan. A relatively small country, but still. And impossible to reach.”

“With nothing but his horn, a copy of The Greening of America, and, like, one change of underwear.”

“Our friends are still back home,” Alice pointed out.

“Yeah, but they’ve probably already forgotten us by now. We didn’t remember them for too long, did we?”

Or our nice, uncomplicated boyfriends, Alice thought, but didn’t say.

“Nope,” Charlie said, answering her own question. “We traded them in for a couple of spoiled-rotten richies.”

Alice nodded, eager to encourage any signs of de-infatuation with Jude on her sister’s part. But then, feeling guilty, she added, “Cybill’s not so bad.”

Charlie snorted but otherwise let that one go, and they were both silent for a while.

“Hey,” Alice said, “how about we spend the morning together? I was thinking about driving into town, going to the library.”