I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to know. Suddenly I was seeing all the things my mother imagines when one of us is late. I saw Frankie lying in a ditch, I saw him splattered over Nostrand Avenue, I saw him stabbed in an alley. But my parents weren’t offering information, so I had to ask.

“What happened to Frankie?”

My parents just looked to each other rather than telling me, so the policeman spoke up instead. “Your brother’s been arrested for drunk driving.”

I let out a gust of air, just then realizing that I hadn’t been breathing.

“He wasn’t actually driving,” added Mom, talking more to the cop than to me. “He backed the car into a duck pond.”

“That’s driving,” the cop reminded her.

I wanted to tell them that it was impossible—that Frankie didn’t drink—I mean, he was the good brother, the A student, the perfect son. That’s what I wanted to say, but my brain got locked on “stupid,” and I said, “Where’s there a duck pond in Brooklyn?”

“Is he going to prison?” Christina asked. “Do we have to talk to him through glass?”

“It’s his first offense,” Dad said. “He’ll lose his license for a year, and have to do community service. That’s what they gave me when I was his age.”

I did a major double take. “You? You mean you got arrested for drunk driving? You never drink and drive!”

“Exactly,” Dad said.

Then my mother looked at me, suddenly realizing something. “Where were you? Why are you coming home so late?”

So they hadn’t even noticed I was gone. But that was okay. I could live without being the center of attention. I didn’t need my face on a billboard, or on a mug shot. And it occurred to me that going unnoticed sometimes meant that you were trusted to do the right thing.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told them. “You go take care of Frankie.”

20. The Weird Things Kids Do Don’t Even Come Close to the Weird Things Parents Do