“Yes,” he said. “Everyone I grew up with can’t wait to leave, and they give me shit for this, but I don’t want to. I would miss it. I mean, I want to travel and explore, but this is home. My mom’s got the perfect life: mountain in the summer and fall, home on the island for winter and spring.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I said. “You’re rooted.”

“I am.”

A pang of something rang in me. An ache.

Jealousy?

“Was your dad on the same ranger schedule?”

“He worked different mountains and parks every season. He must have been gone a lot, but I mostly remember him home, the three of us backpacking.”

“You got the nature/nurture combo,” I said. “What if you’d been like, Screw you guys and this wilderness crap. I’m going to be a tax attorney and there’s nothing you can do about it?”

He laughed, sending nearby gulls flying. “I’d like to say they would have said, Whatever makes you happy, have fun! But honestly, they would have been totally disappointed and had a—what’s the drug-addiction thing where they get you in a room and tough-love-style tell you you’re fucked up?”

“An intervention?”

“Yes! We love you too much to watch you destroy your life learning tax codes; here’s some CLIF Bars and a pup tent—you’re going into the woods for six weeks to get clean!”

“I’m so sorry he’s gone,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“They sound like dream parents. You’re so lucky.”

“Do you know anything about yours?”

“No.”

“No names, nothing?”

“Hospital found me in a lobby.”

He moved closer to me.

“Do you ever think about doing the ‘spit in the tube and mail it in’ DNA deal?”

I shrugged. “No.”

“Not even to see…like, what ethnicity you are and what cancer you’ll die from or, oh, what if your ancestors are from Ireland and then you can go to Celtic fairs and do a maypole without culturally appropriating?”

His straightforward lack of sentimental bullshit was delicious. The main thing Joellen worries about is my being “allergic to sentimentality,” which I see more as an allergy to cornball fake sincerity. Creepy words give me hives. When people’s voices get all breathy and quiet and they say stuff like I see you in reference to emotions, or describe feelings as tender, I get the major icks. I never lasted more than a day in a therapist’s office, and Joellen eventually believed me when I explained that, yes, I like people, I can love them, I just don’t want to talk about it. People say all kinds of shit they don’t mean. Creeptastic words don’t indicate emotional health. Case in point: Natan. Sean seemed an unlikely candidate to call emotions wounds or insist that we dialogue about something.

“Maypoles are German,” I said.