“Truth is,” he said, “I might know how you feel. I’ve never been through anything like that, but I know how it feels to be in a position where the shit you’ve been through makes you feel completely cut off from everyone in your life. But I also can recognize that you’re in a unique situation. You can’t tell anyone about this. You probably shouldn’t have even told me about this. This is the sort of thing that could easily turn into a political weapon— both what Obelus did, and what I now know Ampersand is capable of doing. That’s a huge burden. And you can’t even tell anyone.” He frowned. “Except Luciana. What’s her deal?”

Cora hung her head. “I said some shitty things during . . . the stuff last year. She hasn’t really forgiven me for it.”

“So apologize. And she should apologize for being shitty to you.”

“I don’t think that would fix anything. We’re not that kind of family.”

“Then you need to start being that kind of family. Trust me, this was the mistake we made.”

“With your brother?”

He nodded. “Neither of my parents were drinkers, but Sirvan and I were both big into the party scene at Berkeley. He was two years younger than me. So we kind of enabled each other. His shit wasn’t like mine, I was a drunk and irresponsible, but he was a drunk and, I don’t know, probably undiagnosed bipolar. I’ll never know. But the signs were there, and sometimes he’d talk a little bit about it, about these intrusive thoughts he had, and Mom and Dad were like, ‘Stop. Stop talking about this, it’s inappropriate, it’s uncomfortable.’ So he did stop talking about it.

“And I kind of did it, too. I’d be like, ‘Dude. Ease up.’ And then I moved to Oxford, and then I was in New York, and if we did talk it was about like . . .” He gestured to the ether. “Work or whatever. So it turns into this thing where your pain is gross and uncomfortable and inconvenient for other people. Like, your family is Catholic, right?” She nodded. “I get it. Your people are not so different from my people.”

“If you had it to do over . . .” She was having difficulty looking him in the eye. “Would you do things differently?”

“Of course I would. I have the power of hindsight, I’ve been through a lot of therapy, I’ve been to rehab. I understand things differently now.” He leaned toward her, and her body went on alert, eyes wide.