So I go to the girls’ room to wait out math class. I sit on the windowsill and close my eyes. I’m trying hard to hang on to what Bo’s face looked like, but it’s already fading. Another bell rings. I walk down the hall to my mother’s office instead. She’s in there with the chairman of the school board. I watch them through the plate glass door to her office. Before Mrs. Kmiec can stop me, I open the door and walk in.

“Hi, Mom.”

The chairman frowns at me. “Can you excuse us, please?”

“Serena!” My mom comes around her desk and runs toward me. She hugs me—not a stiff hug, not a conditional hug, but a real hug. Both of her arms get involved. “Oh, Serena. Thank God you’re back. What an odyssey.” She holds me at arm’s length. “Look at you.” Tears are in her eyes. “It changed you.”

“It’s the jacket,” I tell her. “It makes me look tough. Were you worried about me?”

She smiles. “Well … yes and no. I knew God was watching, and He’s pretty tough Himself. I prayed a lot. What else could I do? But I am glad you’re back.” She keeps an arm around me as she turns back to the chairman. “Dick, thanks for coming by. I need to take my daughter out to eat. She looks like she hasn’t had a square meal in a week.”

It takes her so long to arrange to leave the office for breakfast that it’s lunchtime when we pull up in front of Wayside Tavern. She orders each of us a Reuben sandwich.

“So what did the chairman want?” I ask.

“Oh, the chairman,” she scoffs. “His digestion is off because …” She sighs. “He’s actually in a very fragile position these days. He’s running for state assembly this fall, but he’s got this young guy to his right—telegenic, handsome, full of zeal—creating problems for him in the primary. The chairman’s trying to stick to the issues, but he needs the school to be a platform.”

While she talks, I squint at her. She’s been snarled up in school board politics for so long she thinks it’s reality. There’s something different about her, though. I can’t exactly identify it. The suit’s the same, the earrings, the hair color, the wrinkles are in the same place, but there’s some—nervousness—around her eyes that seems new. Our Reubens come. We both take big bites.

“Oh!” She spits her first bite out into her napkin. “Grace.” She reaches across the table, seizes me by both my hands, switches into her prayer voice, and thanks the Lord for bringing me home safely. That done, she talks school board politics straight through lunch. When the Reubens are done, she’s ready to listen. She orders a cup of coffee, and I have another Reuben.

“Now tell me about your trip,” she says. “How’s Melody?”

So I sketch in the basics—the postcard, the bus trip, LA, how we got home.