When we start to climb the hill, he can’t walk as fast and it’s almost impossible to drive slow enough. He waves as I pass, pointing to the left I’m supposed to take. When I see him in my rearview mirror, he’s completely caught up in making sure I go the right way. It is so much more effort than I’m used to anyone giving me and I start to think that maybe it’s fine. Maybe all of it is fine. Not everyone is as squirrelly as my father. Margo was always nice to me for the sake of being nice, so it is a possible thing.

At the stop sign, I lean across and push the passenger door open. Adam runs over. Gets in, his weight shifting the balance of the car. He smells like dryer sheets.

“You don’t travel light,” he says, eyeing the jumble of blankets and clothes and garbage bags in the back seat.

I don’t know how to explain myself.

“Hey.” Adam touches my arm with the tips of his fingers, light, and I don’t flinch. “You don’t have to tell me. I won’t ask. I’ve been there too.”

I nod, wondering where it is he thinks I’ve been.

He pulls his hand away and looks out the window, but I feel the imprint of his fingers still.

On the radio, a low voice says, “Hey, this is Tommy Flash, I’m kicking it live here on ICB. I’d like to send this next one by Pearl Jam out to all my boys in the West Tower.”

Adam laughs. “College station.”

I’ve learned since I got here that the town is in a valley with schools on both the bordering hills, but “College” always means Ithaca College. When people are talking about the other one, they say Cornell, and I think that’s on the other hill, not the one we’re heading up.

We make the turn on Hudson and Adam points to a big white Victorian with a row of black metal mailboxes by the front door. There’s an open parking space out front. He shows me where to make a U-turn. We are quiet as I drive back to the spot. We listen to the song. It’s about a girl telling someone not to call her their daughter.

I park.

Adam opens the car door. “I’m asking one more time,” he says.

My fingers are cold enough to hurt. I have to pee already and there’s no bathroom I know how to find. I get out of the car. Leave my stuff, keep the key clenched in my fist. Adam doesn’t make a big deal about it, which makes it easier to follow him to the front door.