We walk along quietly after that, until Ferdinand gets antsy and wants to play. He head-butts Micah, and Micah starts to run with him, dodging away every time Ferdinand tries to push him.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to encourage that!” I call after them.

Ferdinand turns at the sound of my voice and pulls Micah toward me. When they reach me, I give Ferdinand a hug. He nudges my chest and almost knocks me over.

“Easy!” I say.

“OK, let’s get him back to his pen.”

Ferdinand looks sad when we leave him alone.

“Poor little guy,” Micah says. “He must be so lonely.”

“He has me,” I say.

“Lucky.” Micah looks at me and smiles, but it’s kind of a sad smile and it makes me feel guilty.

“C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go ride bikes or something.” I meant ride our bikes to someplace, but it comes out sounding more like what a little kid would say. Like we’re going to go ride bikes in the driveway the way we used to, and make obstacle courses with chalk and scraps of wood for ramps. I think Micah reads my mind, but instead of making fun of me, he gets all excited and says, “Yeah!” Back at the house, we search in the garage for some wood and make a few ramps in the driveway. Ivy comes out to see what we’re doing and immediately joins in by setting up obstacles for us to bike around. For the next few hours, we feel like little kids again, and like the kind of friends we’ve always been until now. We whoop when we ride over jumps and make stupid sounds as we take tight corners and pop wheelies.

When my dad gets home, he parks in the grass so we can keep playing. He looks less angry than when he left. It used to be that when my parents had an argument and my dad stormed off, he’d come back with flowers for my mom, or a bag of her favorite takeout. But today he’s empty-handed, which is probably a good thing because I don’t think my mom would be too happy if he spent money on something frivolous.

“Been a while since you guys did this!” he says.

Micah goes over a ramp. “Hi, Mr. Gartner!” he calls.

“Nice to see you, kid,” my dad calls back.

The three of us keep riding until we’re too tired. Then we ditch our bikes and go out back to find Rainbow and give him clumps of grass. We pet him, and he licks my hand like he always does, as if it’s his way of saying hello. He only licks mine, though — no one else’s. We lie on our backs in the grass and listen to him chomp nearby and look up at the sky, now filled with puffy clouds.