“Kelli and I are fine,” I said.

“Fine!” repeated Trevor. “Just like your poor ol’ Mum was fine, eh? She’s sick and dying and alone but, sure! As long as everything’s fine.” Trevor’s face transformed in the short time it took him to speak these two sentences. At the evocation of Irene, his jaw squared and his lips whitened and his face became a mask of aggrieved nobility. His voice even trembled on cue at the words dying and alone. It was building to something, this abrupt and ersatz show of emotion. I thought Trevor might actually be preparing to squeeze out a couple of tears, just to demonstrate, once and for all, who cared about our mother most.

But that’s not what he did. He turned toward the counter and, with his forearm, swept the dishpan, which had a few plates and some cutlery in it, into the sink and onto the floor. Nothing broke, but the clatter of the dishes and silverware against the chrome was tremendous. It caused Kelli, who’d only just removed her hands from her ears, to start hollering — an affronted jumble of Trebies punctuated by loud, emphatic nos. Trevor glanced over at her, startled. He’d never been yelled at by Kelli before.

“You get to break the dishes,” Trevor argued with me, even though I was not the one who had reproached him, “Why don’t I get to break dishes? Eh? I’m the wounded party over here. Why don’t I get to break a few dishes?” He picked up a heavy glass water jug from the table and weighed it in his hands. He shook his head, lips still pursed, as if to convey how unfortunate he found this situation, this sad circumstance that had come to pass through no fault of his own.

I glanced again at Mike, hoping for some kind of guidance. But Mike was no help. He was still in his stone-boy alternative reality. He’d even taken his game out from the pocket of his hoodie and although he hadn’t turned it on, he was scrutinizing its every angle as if it were some kind of alien artifact that had just dropped into his hands.

All I could do, I realized, was wait to see what Trevor would decide to do with the jug.

He’d been watching me the whole time and, the moment I resigned myself to this — that the situation was entirely in his hands — was the moment he grinned and put the jug back down on the table.

“Ah well,” said Trevor. “I guess someone has to be the grown-up.” He clapped his hands again at Mike, who stuffed his game away into the pocket of his hoodie and stood up.

Tomorrow I would call and change the locks.