When he drove through his neighborhood today, it looked remarkably the same. Somehow in his mind’s eye, Connor imagined it would look vaguely postapocalyptic: overgrown, underwatered, and indefinably forlorn, as if somehow the entire suburb suffered without him. But no. The lawns and hedges were all trimmed to good-neighbor standards. He considered driving down Ariana’s street, but decided against it. Some parts of the past need to stay exactly where they are.

When he finally turned onto his street, he had to keep both hands firmly on the wheel to keep them from shaking.

Home sweet home.

It looked perfectly inviting on the outside, even if the invitation was false. For a moment, it crossed his mind that his family might have moved—until he saw the LASITR1 license plate on a shiny new Nissan coupe in the driveway. His brother’s? No, Lucas would be fifteen now, still too young to have a license. Perhaps one of his parents downsized from a sedan, having one less son to take up space.

A window was open upstairs, and Connor could hear the riffs of an electric guitar. Only then did he remember that his brother was begging for one around the time their parents signed Connor’s unwind order. The music bears none of the acoustic skills of Cam Comprix. It’s raucously dissonant—just the kind of thing that would irritate their father. Good for Lucas.

Connor had driven by twice, scouring the street for hidden officers in unmarked cars, and found none. No one would still be on the lookout for him here, now that the Juvenile Authority is convinced that the Hopi are giving Connor political asylum halfway across the country.

He could easily have made his appearance then—there was no good reason to delay it—but he made this detour anyway as a stalling tactic.

He needed to weigh Risa’s dire warnings about going home.

He needed to search his own heart to know if he really needs to risk this.

So he went to the ledge, like he had done so many times in the past when he needed to think.

The ledge is cramped and crisscrossed with the webs of oblivious spiders who have no concept of a world larger than this overpass. Funny, but all the time he spent here brooding over how unfair his life was—in the days before it actually became unfair—Connor never knew what the sign actually read on the other side. He found out that day he drove past it with Risa and Beau.

THIS LANE MUST EXIT.

Thinking about it makes him laugh, although he can’t say exactly why.

It’s dark out now. It’s been dark for a while. If he’s going to do this, he can’t wait much longer. He wonders if they’ll invite him in, and if they do, will he accept? He knows he has to keep the visit short, just in case they secretly call the police. He’ll have to watch them. Keep them both in sight the whole time he’s there. That is, if he goes in at all. He’s still not beyond aborting the whole thing at the last minute.

Finally he pulls himself over the railing, leaving the ledge behind, and returns to the car, which he parked nearby. He takes his time starting it. He takes his time driving to his street. It’s so unlike him to do anything slowly, but this act of return—it has such inertia, it’s like pushing a boulder uphill. He can only hope it doesn’t roll back to crush him.

Some lights are on in the house: the living room lights downstairs and in Lucas’s room upstairs. The light is off in the room that had been his. He wonders what it is now. A sewing room? No that’s stupid, his mother didn’t sew. Maybe just storage for all the junk that always accumulates in the house. Or maybe they left it like it was. Is there actually a part of him that hopes that? He knows that’s even less likely than a sewing room.

He passes the house, parks down the street, and pulls the four pages of his letter out of his pocket. He read it several times while on the ledge to prepare himself for this moment. It didn’t.

He walks past the driveway and turns down the little flagstone path to the front door. Anticipation speeds his heart and makes it feel as if it’s rising in his chest, trying to escape.

Maybe he’ll just hand them the letter and leave. Or maybe he’ll talk to them. He doesn’t yet know. It’s the not knowing that makes it so hard—not knowing what they will do, but even worse, having no clue what he’s going to do either.

But whatever happens, good or bad, it will bring closure. He knows it will.

He’s halfway to the front door when a figure steps out of the shadows of the porch and stands directly in his path. Then suddenly, there’s a sharp stinging in Connor’s chest. He’s down on the ground before he even realizes he’s been shot with a tranq, and his vision goes blurry, so he can’t even tell who his attacker is as he draws near. For a moment something about his face makes him think of Argent Skinner—but it’s not Argent. Not by a long shot.

“How unceremonious,” the man says. “This moment should be grander.”

And Roland’s fist, which holds the pages of the letter so tightly, relaxes, letting the pages fall free as Connor plunges into the chemical void.

40 • Mom

Claire Lassiter takes a moment from her exhausting task of maintaining appearances. She thought she heard something out front and it’s giving her an odd sense of prescient anticipation, although she doesn’t know why. It’s nothing new. She jumps every time a pinecone falls on the roof, or a squirrel scuttles over the rain gutters. She’s been so edgy for so long, she can’t remember the last time she felt calm.

She definitely needs a vacation. They all do. But they won’t take one. There are tickets for a vacation they never took in a drawer upstairs somewhere. They ought to just throw them away, but they don’t. Funny how their lives have become all about inactivity.