Like underwear, paintbrushes are more expensive the smaller they are. I was making fiddly adjustments to a lead figurine of a man in a tunic with high boots and a sword at his hip, adjusting the color of his cape while we waited on my aunt so the game could begin. My mother spent the time re-reading the adventure we were about to go on. “Into the Spider Lands,” or something equally appealing—these Dungeon modules were all the same. It was like reading a crime novel or a romance, a pattern that rarely wavered from its course. By now I felt I had outgrown these family adventures anyway, but tomorrow I would be losing my virginity and there was something comforting in the idea of gaming with my family. I blew on the little metal figure until the paint dried and told my mother how my first date was going to be conducted. She was going to drive me the hour it would take to get to Gladstone, then she would wait for me at a safe distance. I told her I was old enough. “Next year I will be gone,”
