“I know,” said Lu. “Drunk. I can tell. Here, sit down on the couch. Let me see your phone, maybe I can figure it out.”

Obediently Anthony handed over his phone. Lu scrolled through the texts. The first one said, Have u heard from ur mother?!!?!! The second one: She and Max are gone. It went on and on from there. I called to tell her I was coming 2 get him and by the time I got there she was gone. Toward the end, R u ever going 2 answer ur phone. And, Ur mother is a psycho.

“Oh, boy,” said Lu. She glanced at Anthony. He was standing in the middle of the living room, swaying like a newly cut tree that had not yet landed. She led him to the couch. “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She took from the refrigerator two of the leftover banana pancakes she had given the boys for dinner two nights ago (Breakfast for dinner always cheers up Charlie and Sammy if they’ve had a rough day!) and spread them with her homemade almond butter (she had unearthed a Cuisinart from the basement—it was ancient, but it had done the trick). She poured a glass of milk—an old college trick, or maybe just an old wives’ tale, something about the protein soaking up the alcohol—and she sat next to Anthony while he ate and drank everything.

“I need to call Cassie back,” he said. Anyway, that’s what she figured he meant to say. What he said sounded more like, I peed in the closet sack. He couldn’t keep his words going straight, even though he looked like he was concentrating very hard on each of them.

“No, you don’t, not now,” she said. “You’re not exactly making sense.”

“I’m not?”

“Not at all. Lie down for a few minutes. You can call when you’ve sobered up a bit. Give me your phone. I’ll hang on to it, and if you fall asleep I’ll wake you when there’s news.”

Anthony obediently lay down. Lu found a white cotton blanket covered with blue seashells and draped it over him. She put Anthony’s phone on the table next to her. She thought about texting Cassie back, but what would she say? I’ll call you when I’m sober? That wouldn’t engender confidence. No, she’d just have to wait, and hope that news came by text or that Anthony would be ready to talk soon. She checked on the boys upstairs; both were sleeping in disorganized lumps. She poured herself a glass of wine and tapped her fingers on the side of the glass, then sat on a chair near the couch and made sure Anthony’s eyes were closed, that his breathing was deep and even, until she could see his eyes moving rapidly behind his eyelids.

Part 4

August

Chapter 41

ANTHONY

ANTHONY WAS DREAMING, but the dreaming was more like remembering: a movie of his life playing out on the screen of his sleeping brain.