Thank God school was over for the holidays. In Michael’s last class, they watched an Alistair Cooke Letter from America episode on pork barrel politics. Mrs. McCarthy must have shown that video a hundred times. He wasn’t a big fan of school, but ever since that last night on the Cape, when Ed found Ann in his bed, he’d tried hard to focus and get back in Ed’s good graces. Michael was pulling decent grades—passing, at least. He took the AP chemistry class Ed thought he should take, joined basketball, and started playing chess at lunch. Ed talked to him about college, and he’d sent an application to UW–Milwaukee, but he didn’t want to go to college, at least not right away.

He and Ann had denied that anything had gone on between them, but Michael wasn’t at all convinced that Ed and Connie believed them. They seemed distant and wary. It felt as if the spell had been broken, and in the four months since their abrupt departure from Wellfleet, the Gordons had gone from being a model family to being a bunch of people who shared a house. He’d been lonely before he met Ann, sure, but he felt even lonelier now, because he was so acutely aware of what he’d lost.

Michael had always done his best to keep his distance, but now Ann was totally off-limits; she might as well have been wrapped up in police tape. She was a different person, too, only her perfect grades weren’t so perfect, and she’d become dramatically less involved, abruptly quitting the cross-country team and forensics. She even skipped homecoming, even though she’d been elected to the court and had a date. She was always in her room. She’d been distracted, not rude or mean. That is, until that morning. She’d been in the small bathroom they all shared for fifteen minutes. He worried he wouldn’t get to school on time, so he knocked gently on the door. “Will you be done soon?”

Ann threw the door open and stormed out. “I can’t get any privacy in this house!”

“What’s your problem?” he asked. He sincerely wanted to know the answer. He felt like he didn’t even recognize her anymore.

“My problem,” she said, “is that there are too many people in this house thanks to you. You aren’t the only person with shit to deal with. Take your shower and go. Just go away. Get out of my life.” She ran into her bedroom and slammed the door.