“We had to grow up too quickly,” I told him, “so I think we were allowed to indulge ourselves with late childhoods. And really, whose business is it what we do with our lives?”

That sounded defensive, and I guess I was talking as much about myself as him, but he just nodded.

“I’d be doing it for myself,” he said. “Because I want to.”

“Then it’s a good thing. Let me know if I can help.”

He gave me a funny look, then walked over to the bed and started stowing the clothes I’d put there into my bag.

“Are you really going to need all of this?” he asked.

I was in the bathroom now, getting my toiletries together.

“Probably not,” I called back. “But it’s been forever since I’ve been on a road trip. Wait until I raid the kitchen.”

“They have food at the hotel,” Geordie said.

“Ah, but we need snacks for the drive.”

It was another fifteen minutes before we were finally pulling out of Bramley’s lane in Christy’s old station wagon, which Geordie used far more often than Christy ever seemed to. My wheelchair was in the back. My bag was on the rear seat along with Geordie’s fiddle and his small knapsack. The food I’d raided from the kitchen was in a plastic bag on the bench seat between us.

When I opened it, I found that Goon had slipped in sandwiches while he was helping me pack the food. Oh, and sensible man that he was, a couple bottles of water, too. I decided to save them for later and went straight to the road food.

“Tortilla chip?” I asked and offered Geordie the bag.

He laughed. “We’re not even into the burbs yet.”

“We have to do the best we can,” I informed him. “It’s not far to Sweetwater, so it’ll be a short road trip and we’ve got a lot of food here.”

He glanced at the bag of food and shook his head. “You sure you’re not part chipmunk?” he asked.

“Because I’ve brought this stash of food along?”

“Why else?”

“Well, maybe you thought my face was getting fat—though,” I added as the thought came to me, “if I was an animal person, that’s probably exactly what I’d be. Or maybe a mouse. Or a mosquito.”

“As opposed to?”

“Oh, you know. The more Romantic kinds of animal people, like a deer or a wolf or an owl.”

“Chipmunks are cute.”

I nodded. “But they don’t get any respect. And they’re liable to get eaten by the wolves and owls.”

“Which isn’t very Romantic.”

“No. Not unless someone like Robbie Burns had gotten hold of the story.”