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me.
    “Mom,” I say. “I am not giving him Dad’s . . . magazines.” I can’t even say the words “porn” and “Dad” in the same sentence.
    “Well, I’m not bringing the Internet back into this house,” Mom says. “Not after last time.”
    “I think Jack learned his lesson after that,” I say. “He’s been good, right?”
    Mom levels a cold gaze at me like I’m being naive, but sometimes I think she enjoys assuming the worst about Jack. About all men, actually.
    “Well, what should we do?” I say. “Jack says he needs it.”
    Mom gives Dad a wide-eyed look like she’s expecting him to come up with an idea, but Dad hasn’t come up with an idea in years. Dad is an idea-free zone. I lower my head and sneak a sideways glance at him. He keeps his eyes on his plate while he stabs a piece of French toast and makes it bleed syrup. When he glances up at Mom, waves of silent hatred propagate between their eyes. Mom’s smile never wavers. She can propagate hate waves while smiling, doing her nails, cooking dinner, you name it.
    After a few seconds of frigid standoff, Mom lays her fork and knife across her plate. “Fine,” she says. “I’ll pick up some magazines after work. Okay?” Though she looks at me while she says this, it’s clearly directed at Dad for being basically a nonentity in this household.
    “Thanks, Mom,” I tell her.
    She waves her hand dismissively, then knocks back the rest of her coffee. “I’ve got to get to the office.” She takes her plate to the sink, dumps the remains in the rubbish, gives it a quick rinse and puts it in the dishwasher—all without a single wasted motion. Then she breezes out of the kitchen as if we have not just discussed pornography over French toast.
    That leaves me and Dad.
    The phone rings and I leap from the table, vowing to engage in a lengthy chat with whomever is on the other end, even if it’s Auntie Billie.
    “Hey, Jill.”
    It’s Ramie, bless her.
    “Guess what?” she says.
    I take the phone out of the kitchen and slump into the beige sofa in the living room. A “guess what” from Ramie could mean anything.
    “I got into FIT,” she says.
    “Nice one!” I say. “Not that I’m surprised, you little genius, you.”
    FIT is the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
    “I wish you were coming with me,” she says.
    “Tell me about it,” I sigh.
    I’d give anything to go away to college, but unfortunately, Plan B will not work in a dorm, so I’m stuck with deeply mal Groton College, which is a Christian college in Winterhead.
    “It’s not too late,” Ramie says. “You could apply for second semester. I could take care of you, drive you to your treatments and stuff. We could be roomies.”
    Yeah,
that
would work.
    I haven’t ruled out the possibility of transferring to a commutable school in Boston at some point, but Mom thinks I should stay close to home, at least for the first year.
    “Ramie,” I say. “I am going to Groton to find Jesus.”
    “Is he missing?”
    Truthfully, college is not something I like to think about. The future, in general, is a big ball of scary. When I imagine what it will be like when I can no longer reasonably live at home, I tend to break out in hives. Not that I want to be one of those losers who never moves out. It’s just that Mom and I haven’t figured out how to evolve Plan B into Plan C: Independent Living. Mom thinks we should shelve worrying about that for a later date. I’m on board with that.
    “Rames,” I say. “I’m really happy for you.”
    “Thanks,” she says, but it’s dripping with moroseness.
    “Well, don’t spoil the fun, dude. You’re going to FIT and I’ll deeply visit you.”
    “Promise?”
    “Duh. So anyway. College schmollege, what have you got for me?”
    “Right,” she says. “Phase One of the Tommy Knutson Project is complete.”
    “Shhh. We’re not calling it that,” I remind her. “It’s called Project X.”
    I can hear Dad’s forlorn