“Aww, Mommy,” Rowan says, and gets up off her bed to hug her.

Trey says, “You have us too, Mom.”

And I just watch her grow old before my eyes, and I smile at her and hope she knows I love her.

If she has a punishment for me, she doesn’t issue it.

Friday morning rolls around quickly. It’s the last day of school before spring break, and I half expect Dad to be standing outside our room, waiting to catch us going to school early, but he’s not there. We three leave by six and sit at the same table we sat at yesterday, but Sawyer doesn’t come. After a while I call him, wondering if he slept through his alarm, but he doesn’t answer.

We hang out, unable to do anything without computers or smart phones, and finally we just go to school, not sure what’s going on.

Sawyer is not by my locker. He’s not in school. There’s no sign of him. And I’m worried. By lunch, I’ve tried calling him three times, and he doesn’t answer.

“I’m freaking out a little,” I say in fifth hour with Trey. “We should have gone to look for him at lunch.”

“Where the hell would we look?”

“We could at least see if his car is home.”

Trey shrugs. “He’s probably got the flu or something.”

“He looked fine last night.”

“Maybe he’s skipping. Heading over to University of Chicago to see what he can find out.”

“Why wouldn’t he answer the phone, then?”

“That . . . I don’t know. Okay. We’ll drive by after.”

The warming trend has continued throughout the day, and there are dirty puddles filling potholes everywhere. I try Sawyer’s phone once more after school as Trey abandons a ride from his doucheball friend Carter again and the three of us climb into the meatball truck. And this time Sawyer answers.

“Hey,” he says.

I pause and hop back outside the truck so I can have some privacy. “Hey, are you okay?”

His voice is quiet. “So, remember back when my dad called your dad after you stopped by our restaurant?”

My eyes fly open. I look at Trey and Rowan, who are peering out the windshield at me. “Yeah.”

“I’m guessing you don’t know that your dad returned the favor last night.”

I bow my head and press it against the truck. “Oh, God.”

“The proprietors were not amused.”

“What happened? Where are you?”

“I’m pulling into the school parking lot now. You got room in that ball truck for one more?”

“Hell yes,” I say. “We’ll make room. We’re going to drop Rowan off and head to the university. Trey and I told Dad about the food truck festival this weekend, so he wants us to—” Sawyer pulls up next to us and parks the car, and I just end the call rather than standing there next to him wasting phone minutes. He opens the door, gets out, and slowly turns to face me.

His left eye is swollen, black and purple.

He eases out of the car like he’s in pain.

Trey and Rowan burst out of the truck when they see him, and all I can do is stare. “Holy shit.”

“Nice, right?”

I go to him. And nobody has to ask what happened.

“Your grandfather didn’t seem to care about hiding it this time,” I say.

Sawyer shifts his gaze like he doesn’t want to talk about it. “It wasn’t my grandfather. Let’s just get out of here.”

Twenty-Nine

We leave his car in the school parking lot—it’s safer in case his parents go looking for him, he says. And we drop Rowan off. She knows she’s got to stay the model obedient child for a few more days, so she doesn’t even pout about it.

Trey drives and we go straight to the University of Chicago. We find the building we need, park the balls in a nearly empty parking lot, and wander the grounds until we find a whole huge section with mostly old buildings—Trey says it’s the main quadrangle.

Sawyer walks slower than usual, so we let him take the lead. He talks us through the vision—as much of it as he can.

“I only see one gunman in the outdoor scene—the short, slight one. I don’t know where the other guy is. He’s bigger and blond. Maybe he’s there next to the smaller one and I just don’t see him because he’s not in the shot, I’m not sure. So if this is the right sidewalk,” he says, pointing to the one we’re on, “he walks in this direction, I think.”

“Do you know which building it happens in? Can you tell?” I try to sound easygoing. Sawyer doesn’t need anybody else harassing him, especially me.

“I don’t know.” Trey points. “Look, there’s some graffiti. Those two guys are trying to remove it from the stone.”

Sawyer and I follow his finger. “I’ll go talk to them,” Sawyer says.

Trey and I exchange a look and stay back as Sawyer approaches the two painters in front of an old, ivycovered building. He talks to the guys for a minute and returns to us.

“The vandals were some haters writing slurs at one of the college equal rights groups or something,” Sawyer says. “They didn’t really know.” He frowns, gazing over the grounds, and starts walking through the campus, lost in thought.

Trey and I follow, acting casual when security drives by in their carts. I look at the trees. Definitely budding, and with the warming trend happening, they’ll be growing quickly, changing daily.