Rack drives me home in time for me to help make supper. Wednesday nights are our night to eat together as a family, and it’s always been a pretty tense affair, a weekly cease-fire between me and Scot, usually brokered by Allegra. But Allegra is not here, and Scot and I have not seen each other since the blowup before I went to Maine.

“Do you know Mike Lyle, Mom?” I ask as I walk through the door. She’s frying chicken legs. I seize a pot of boiling potatoes, stab them, and drain them.

“Wash your hands,” she says. I wash my hands. She’s impaling the chicken legs with a long-handled fork.

“I changed my classes around today,” I tell her. “I added physics, calculus, and a fourth year of French.” I watch little drops of grease hop out of the skillet and bounce across the stove. The one thing my mother cannot do is cook. Before she married Scot, she was a vegetarian.

“I know,” she says. “Guidance wasn’t very happy about your high-handed attitude.”

“Well …” I mash the potatoes contemplatively. “I just wanted to see what it would feel like to do a little better, you know, to challenge myself.”

“You’re not used to that. Do you think you can handle it?”

“I can try.”

“Well, I approved it.”

“Thank you.”

“As a new principal,” she says, “I only have so much capital. I don’t want to use it all up on you on the first day of school. Guidance thinks you’ll fall flat on your face. In case that motivates you.”

“I think I can come up with my own motivation,” I tell her.

She actually smiles at me. “I’ll look forward to that.”

“So do you know Mike Lyle?” I ask her.

She sighs. “Unfortunately,” she says. “Why?”

“What’s he like?” I ask.

“Sullen. Rude. Lazy. Why?”

“Do you think he’s potentially lethal, or just another harmless loser?”

She considers. “The latter. Basically.” She collars Zack as he runs by and leads him to the sink. Then Scot comes in and takes over washing Zack. We don’t make eye contact.

“Isn’t Mike Lyle wanted in about twenty-five states?” he asks my mother. “That’s what I heard.”

“Wanted for what?” I ask.

“Fighting, I guess,” Scot says. “Disturbing the peace. He played semipro ball for a while after he got out of the army. When he worked on the crew, he used to brag about all the people he messed up.”

“I know his father was pretty rough,” my mother says. “Mike senior.”

Scot shrugs. “Those things get passed down.”

Mom looks at me sharply. “Stay away from him. He’s too old for you.”

“Believe me, I know that. By the way, I’m going out for cheerleading.”