Jordan couldn’t stop apologizing as I drove him home.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“You were being so sweet.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s been a really stressful time.”

“I get it.”

“Please don’t take it personally.”

“I won’t.”

“That was shaping up to be a pretty romantic moment.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Before I ralphed.”

“Don’t need the recap here, Jordan.”

“That was disgusting. Tasted awful, too. And fizzy.”

“Okay, we can stop talking about it now.”

“It was no reflection on how I feel about you.”

“I didn’t interpret it as such.”

“Please don’t take it personally.”

“I will if you don’t shut up already.”

He smiled sheepishly.

“Anyway, I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay.”

“I should have left a tender moment alone.”

“You seriously have to stop right now.”

He smirked to himself. I guess that was a good sign.

“Got a breath mint?” he asked.

I pulled a tin of Altoids from my purse as I turned onto our street. “Take ’em all.”

After we got home, Jordan recounted his whole disturbing conversation with his father. I didn’t know his dad well, but when I’d seen him at school events or his house, he always seemed like a friendly-enough guy—a nerdy scientist who took quiet pride in his son and family. He may not have been the most effusive fellow, but he also didn’t come across as the cold automaton that Jordan was describing. He didn’t even offer Jordan a ride, just left him sitting there with his wounded leg.

Also, he gave Jordan a warning. I knew Jordan. Telling him to back off was the quickest way to get him to dig deeper.

“Well, if you’re going to be staying here longer, let’s make this place feel a bit more like home,” I said in the exam room that he’d been using as a bedroom.

“Great,” he said without much inflection.

“Check this out,” I said, and pulled out a rolled-up poster. “I found this at a thrift store before the evacuation and had been waiting for the right occasion to take it out. This is it.”

I unrolled an Evil Dead II poster, the skull with eyeballs looking sideways off the page.

“Awesome!” Jordan enthused. “That’s an original?”

“Of course. And now it’s yours.”

“You’re the best,” he said, and gave me a hug that included many awkward pats on the back before he pulled away.

“And, hey,” I said, “pending any other unexpected disasters, school starts tomorrow at last. So that’ll feel somewhat ‘normal.’”

“Sure,” he said. “Now, where’s that poster putty?”

I’d hoped to get a decent night’s sleep before the first day of school, but once again I woke up early to frenzied barking. Mrs. Little, the middle-school librarian, arrived at our front door at 6 a.m. with her wild hound dog bouncing off the sides of its carrier. As I stood at the top of the stairs, I heard Mrs. Little telling my mom that she’d had to lure the dog into the carrier with one of Mr. Little’s T-bone steaks, which it had eaten clean off the bone before the loud crunching of bone began.