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dreams. But sometimes I think it must be more than that and I just don’t know yet what more there is. Maybe if I really loved Chris I’d be happy for him that he gets to go on this trip.
    I wish people could take a love test. Sort of like a lie detector test, only you’d find out if the person was really in love with you before you went ahead and fell totally in love with him. Before you handed him your life and he broke it in half.
    Finally I walked back to the car. Chris was sitting behind the wheel with his eyes closed, but when he heard me coming, he leaned over and opened the passenger door from inside.
    â€œYou okay?” he asked.
    I nodded, even though it wasn’t true.
    â€œSo, we still going to the lake?” he asked.
    I closed the door and looked at him. “When do you leave?” I asked. “When do you go to Rome?”
    â€œUm, well. On Thursday.” He swept his eyes over cautiously to locate mine.
    â€œ This Thursday?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThat’s four days from now!”
    â€œThe orientation starts Friday.”
    â€œYou know what?” I said. “Take me home.”
    Chris let his head hang back. “Robin, come on. Don’t be mad at me again.”
    â€œI’m not mad. I just want to go home. I don’t feel like listening to you tell everybody your big news.”
    He was quiet for a minute. “Okay. Maybe tomorrow we can go to the lake?”
    I shrugged. “If you want.”
    â€œOf course I want ! I want to see you as much as possible before I leave!”
    Why bother? is what I thought. This is torture. If you’re going, just go.

M om was on the phone in the kitchen when I came back into the house. She looked up and interrupted her conversation for a moment. “Forget something?” she asked.
    â€œNope,” I said. We both listened to Chris’s car peel out of the driveway. I was not going to fall apart, go ballistic, or lose my mind. Not right this minute anyway. I would discuss it with Mom when she got off the telephone.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” she called in.
    â€œFinish your phone call,” I said, sitting carefully on the edge of the couch. I picked up a copy of the University of Iowa Alumni Bulletin from the coffee table and pretended to look at it while I eavesdropped on my mother’s conversation. There were only a few people in the world she could be talking to—it shouldn’t be hard to figure out which one this was.
    â€œShe and Chris must be arguing again,” Mom told the caller. “You know, about his going to school so far away.”
    It was someone who knew me pretty well. Not, for example, Mr. Hemingway. Must be Esther, although Esther doesn’t like to hang on the phone either.
    â€œI know, it would be great if the kids could see each other more often.”
    I sat forward. Could it be Dad? But why would he be calling now—I just talked to him on my birthday last month. I hadn’t seen him in three years, not since he got remarried and moved to Arizona with his wife. They had a two-year-old son I’d never seen either: David, my half brother. I was barely fourteen when Dad left—he doesn’t even know what I look like anymore.
    But, no. Mom seemed too at ease to be talking to Dad. Not that they were unfriendly, not anymore, but their limited conversations were kind of formal, and Mom always seemed to be faking cheerfulness.
    â€œI will ask her, but I don’t think you should get your hopes up. You and the kids could stop at the farm on your way west anyway, couldn’t you? You haven’t been here since Dad died.”
    Okay, I got it. I should have guessed by the tired sound of her voice that she was talking to her sister, Dory, a labor-intensive job. Aunt Dory is Mom’s younger sister by two years, her only sibling, and the one who did everything right, according to Grandad. Didn’t get pregnant until she was married and