Chapter 47

After a stretch of utter silence—I’d never be able to judge the true length, which felt overlong, but was surely only a quick moment—Greg said something about digging out the blowup mattress, and the noises behind me indicated normal activity had resumed. Wes opened the freezer as Mom dumped spaghetti into the large stock pot of boiling water. Dad asked when dinner would be ready.

“About ten minutes,” I said, since that’s how long it would take for the pasta to cook, and I really needed to feel natural and part of the flow of routine happening around me.

I glanced back, and Dad nodded as if it were just an ordinary question on a random day, then strolled toward Greg’s room. Of course, it was an ordinary question, and the circumstances surrounding it shouldn’t be considered out of the ordinary either. I could have been floating on air, I felt so light as it struck me. Never again would it feel like a particularly remarkable occurrence.