“Thank you,” Gerald said to his chest. “Now could we please get going?”

“All I can do is thank you again,” Jane said. The scarf, too, seemed an affectation. The temperature was probably in the fifties.

“You could also give me a ride back to my office.”

She moved some papers around on the back seat and he climbed in. “Take a right at the end of the street and then another right,” he said. “What’s that smell in here?”

“It’s wine,” Gerald said.

4.

Gerald was banging his legs against the seat, obviously trying to get a rise out of her. Maybe it was best to simply let him blow off some steam in this harmless way. He hadn’t said a word since they dropped off Brian, not that he’d been talkative when Brian was in the car, and now they were almost home. She decided to make one last stab at civility. “Was your teacher happy with all the practicing you’ve been doing, sweetie?”

Bang bang bang, and then he slid a little lower in his seat and actually kicked the dashboard.

“I asked you a question, Gerald.” Carefully enunciating each word, she said, “Did the teacher notice how much practicing you’ve been doing?”

Bang bang bang, kick kick kick.

“Gerald! Enough!”

He fluttered his legs rapidly, like a swimmer racing to the finish line, and then exploded: “Where were you, Jane?”

She wished then that she hadn’t been so quick to allow him to use her first name. It had sounded cute when he was two, a tiny boy calling his mother Jane, so incongruously grown-up in that incongruously grown-up voice of his. But now it seemed to put them on an equal footing, as if they were peers, as if she had no authority over him. Saddest of all, there was no turning back; it was unlikely now that he would ever call her something as tender as mom. “I told you, sweetheart, I was stuck in traffic. There was a terrible accident and I was stuck on the bridge. There was nothing I could do.”

“Doubtful.”

“You’re being very rude, young man.” Bang bang bang. “And please stop that annoying thing you’re doing with your legs.”

He gave the dashboard one last kick. “Grandma said you’d probably forgotten me.”

“Grandma? You called Sarah?”

“I called her when you didn’t show up. What was I supposed to do, sit around and wait to be kidnapped?”

“The security guard was looking for you. You didn’t hear him?”

“He was looking for someone named Jerry and since that isn’t my name, I paid no attention.”

“Exactly what did your grandmother say to you?”