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toothbrush handle to save ounces,” he said.
    “No, you’re the one wanting to take useless crap on the road. What do you want it for, anyway?”
    He shrugged. “Reminds me of this place.”
    Before I could ask why he needed to be reminded of my garage, my mom’s car pulled up in the driveway. She stopped short of her normal parking spot when she beheld our base camp.
    “Don’t you think you and Win should work on your bikes inthe barn?” she asked/ordered as she climbed out of the car. There was no way she could fit her Honda into the garage. The slab floor was littered with our two bikes, the four sets of saddlebags, and an impossible amount of camping gear. We were two days away from departure, had graduation practice in a couple of hours, and had yet to load the bikes to get the weight balanced.
    “Mrs. Collins, we would, but you know I have those nasty dust allergies,” said Win as he helped himself to another handful of the Spanish peanuts my father kept on his workbench. Win enjoyed needling my mother—probably because no matter what he did to his own, she barely reacted.
    Mom wasn’t playing along today. “What’s this?” she demanded, picking up a jar of peanut butter and holding it like it was exhibit A in a bad TV courtroom drama.
    “The number one brand that moms and kids all love,” Win deadpanned.
    The vein on her temple began to pulse. “I mean, what’s it doing
here
? I bought this jar yesterday,” she said. “Isn’t the whole point of your little adventure to be independent?”
    My mother ate nothing with any amount of fat in it, and my father had been having the same turkey sandwich for lunch every day for the past twenty years. I was the only one who ate peanut butter.
    “I’ll pay you for it, if that’s what you want,” I offered, trying to sound patient.
    “That’s not the point. If you’re so determined to live on your own for the next two months, maybe you need to buy your own groceries?”
    This was not about peanut butter. Even so, I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice when I replied, “I know how to buy groceries, Mom.”
    “And I make excellent lists,” Win piped in.
    We both ignored him. “Seriously, Mom,” I said. “If it’s that big a deal, I’ll just use it now for the packing and put it back later.”
    She shook her head, put the jar back on the pile next to my journal and compass, and turned to go.
    “Keep it,” she said as she left the garage, half slamming the door behind her. The tools above the bench rattled against their hangers in the aftershock. I closed my eyes and tried to remind myself that this woman had a right to give me a hard time. A right to miss me before I’d even gone.
    “You know—deep down—she must really like peanut butter,” Win said, grinning.
    I grabbed a couple of tie-downs and started strapping my sleeping bag and pad to my rear rack, not replying.
    “That or she’s still not super comfortable with the idea of her baby boy riding his bike in traffic for the next two months.”
    Still I said nothing, yanking harder on the straps.
    “Nah,” he said. “It’s got to be the peanut butter thing. She must sneak it after-hours, like those ladies in the Lifetime movies. Remember that one we saw—”
    “Are you going to help me with this or not?” I asked. Win was still popping back peanuts, elbows perched on the bench.
    “I
am
helping,” he said. “I’m providing much-needed clarity into the messy domestic situations of your troubled household.”
    “Don’t do that.” “That” was Win’s favorite pastime of channeling the therapists his parents had been sending him to for the last six years. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong with their kid, but wouldn’t bother to talk to him when they could pay someone else to. I was the only one who knew about these sessions, and thus the only one who got subjected to his recycled brand of psychobabble. Win wasn’t disturbed. He was just a jackass. And a little