“Finish your milkshake,” Tom said as he took in Becky sitting in the passenger seat of his three-year-old Durango, a dark blue one he’d picked up for a steal.

She was holding the cup against her chest and looking out the window to the parking lot of the fast food restaurant after he’d swung by her school and picked her up.

She put the straw to her lips and sucked the strawberry shake. Her fries were gone, and he’d just downed a burger, since he was starving after just having finished his shift at the ER.

She said nothing as she stared straight ahead. At the same time, he didn’t think she would obediently do what he said. “You called me last night…” She stopped and turned in the seat to face him, the light vinyl rustling. What could he see there?

He said nothing, waiting her out, because yes, he’d called. He’d needed to hear her voice, know where she was.

“You’re a hard man to read, Tom. What is this?” She gestured and at the same time sounded both delusional and sad. He didn’t like either.

“I called you because I wanted to see you,” he said—and know what she was doing and have an idea of where she was, not out with that good-looking dude who he was aware would take the first opportunity to make something happen with her. He couldn’t let her know any of the darkness he was drowning in, which had him reacting so unreasonably. That was a piece of himself that he’d held on to, and he refused to admit to himself that it was a problem, maybe because it was all he knew.

“You demanded to know my class times, when my last classes were, which ones and when they ended, when I’m working, and for me to be outside waiting for you to pick me up and take me…where?” She gestured, and he could see the confusion he couldn’t believe he was responsible for. For a minute, he wanted to say to her, See? I told you to stay away from me, but he said none of that. Then there was Ian. He’d asked if she’d seen him again, and he was aware she hadn’t answered.

“Tell me about your family,” he said, crumpling up his burger wrapper. “They seem nice, from what I remember.”

“They are. My parents are amazing. They have the kind of marriage you read about in fiction, the kind that lasts forever. Let me be clear, they do argue now and then, but my dad loves my mom. I can see it every time I’m around them, when they’re in a room together, even out, he holds her hand, and the number of times I’ve walked into the kitchen and found them kissing, in each other’s arms, behaving like teenagers, I mean, what kind of parents still do that? They’re all about family, too. My dad would do anything for us, all of us. I have an older brother who’s twenty-six, and he has autism. He’ll always be at home and will never live on his own even though he’s had early intervention and therapy and everything, but he’s happy, and he’s independent to a point. Not really a burden, but my mom and dad have created their entire world around him, us.

“I guess what I didn’t realize until now is how everyone in the family has stepped up, pretty much. This year I think it all happened. Uncle Neil and Aunt Candy, Gramma and Grampa, even Uncle Jed and Diana, they take Trevor, my brother. The family decided a few years ago they were all part of this and will all step in to take care of him, but it was last year more of a consistent schedule started, so Trevor spends time with everyone in my family, sees the world, and isn’t isolated. That was the biggest thing my mom pushed for.”

She was so sweet, and the way she talked about her brother, her family, it made him ache inside, because it was something he couldn’t understand. It was as foreign to him as a language he didn’t know. It sounded like the kind of family that wasn’t real, but her face, her expression, said everything as she spoke of them. They made her happy.

“I have a little brother, six,” she said. “He was my mom and dad’s oops baby. I remember when my mom found out she was pregnant, it kind of threw her for a bit. It was a rocky spot for my mom and dad, and it was the first time I’d seen my parents as fallible, doing and saying something they wished they could take back. There was some arguing and tension between my mom and dad. We stayed a few nights with Neil and Candy as they worked through it, and they did. Then there’s my older sister, Katy, a few years older than me. She’s married and lives down in Salem with my nephew and her husband, Steven…” Then she hesitated. He didn’t know why she stopped talking all of a sudden and glanced away, her smile gone. “What about you, doctor mysterious? I know nothing about you.”

She was watching him, and he realized there was a lot more to her and her family that he needed to know. Maybe once she learned he was the one from the wrong side of the tracks, that would be all she needed to step out of his car and walk away. Even though that was the last thing he wanted, he just couldn’t stop the self-destruction that seemed to make up who he was. “I come from the most fucked-up dysfunctional family from nowhereville, Missouri. My mom’s highest aspiration other than being the punching bag at the other end of my father’s fists was to be a night janitor at Walmart. My dad is a chameleon and plumber by trade. When he’s drinking, he becomes a mean son of a bitch, but when he’s sober, he’s everybody’s best friend. My brother seems to have fallen in line with the statistical outcome of what happens to a kid raised in a cesspool.” He couldn’t believe he’d said it and took in the shock in Becky’s face.

“I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine. So you don’t talk to your family?” she asked.

He wondered whether she understood what she was asking. He thought of the calls he still got from his mother that he now let go to voicemail. Every time she got beat up, she called, and every time he told her to leave, she refused. There was always an excuse to stay, always a reason that it was her fault, always an explanation as to why his father wasn’t all bad.

“Let’s go. Finish up,” he said, then opened the paper bag and tucked in the wrappers. He gestured for her milkshake, which she quickly sucked down with a loud slurp. After dumping their garbage, he started his Durango and pulled out of the parking lot, glancing only once her way. “Call your parents. Tell them you won’t be home for dinner. Tell them you won’t be home until late.”