But then, a few nights ago, Ann suddenly directed the golden beam of her attention back on him. She returned home from babysitting and found Michael in his room in the attic. He was bored because Poppy was gone again, hanging out with her new surfing friends, and Ed and Connie went to bed early. A few minutes after they’d shut their bedroom door he heard the bedsprings squeak and the headboard bang rhythmically against the paper-thin wall. He figured he should get lost.

Before he could leave, he heard the kitchen door swing open, followed by the fast tap-tap-tap of Ann’s feet on the steep stairs. He knew it was Ann; he knew the sound of her footsteps, her breathing, her sneezes.

She didn’t bother to knock first. She sat on the end of his bed and smiled. “I have exciting news! Anthony said Jason, his landscaper, needs help this summer, and I told him you could do it. I guess it’s really hard to find workers here. I told him you love to garden. You want a job, right?”

He was having fun without a job, but Michael liked to work, and he liked the idea of making his own money. He couldn’t get used to Ed and Connie paying for his stuff; he saw the way their brows furrowed and their expressions changed whenever they held out their credit card. Michael figured he’d pay them back someday, help them when they were old, something to make them feel like he’d earned his place in the family.

“I don’t know much about gardening out here,” he said.

“Don’t worry about that. He’ll train you. You’d probably do more of the basic stuff anyway. Jason is desperate. I’ve met him. He’s nice. You’d like him.”

Michael resented Ann for assuming that he’d say yes. What was he, Ann’s own private lawn boy on demand?

“We’d practically be coworkers. You’ll be at the Shaws’ all the time. Maureen said Jason is going to help them build a stone patio. Please, Michael?”

Ann’s eyes were gray-green. She had little baby hairs that curled around her forehead where the rest of her hair was pulled back. Her cheeks were red from running up the stairs. Her hand was on his calf. She was on his bed, he could feel her weight, her heat. He wished he could reach out—

“Sure,” he said, closing his notebook.

“Awesome!”

He agreed because he missed Ann, and this was a way to get close to her. Ever since they’d first met, that night under the green light of the Holidome, he knew one thing: he wanted to be wherever she was.