Chapter 78

“A few days,” Tom Alan said. “Hey. Were you living in your car?” Erika hadn’t thought of that. Maybe he parked at the ice rink—slept there some nights—and then drove away early, like that morning. “You’ll move into the house and go back to school.” Tom Alan stood. He put his hands on his hips, for gravitas, perhaps. “You’ll move into the house and go back to school, right?” He waited. “We can’t be your parents. We can’t make you, I guess. We can’t do anything if you won’t let us.”

Was he giving up already, Erika wondered.

“We could coach you, maybe. That might work. Coaches are like parents, only…more strict. More demanding, but supportive. They love you, but they don’t have to buy you things. They can tell you what to do, and you have to do it, but you’re not trapped together because of DNA. You’re there because you want to be. Say it, Kensuke. You’ll move into the house…”

Kensuke played with the corner of the thin white hospital blanket. “And go back to school.”