Katherine was giving Dad the Mom update in the kitchen, which meant Mom was actually alone. A rare event these days. Whenever Harry tried to talk with her, Dad always appeared and gave the you’re-not-to-tire-Mom-out lecture. It was freaky—like Dad had developed ESP. Harry ran down the hall and knocked on the bedroom door. Dad used to be the closed-door person in the house, but now everything was up for grabs. How weird was that—having to relearn his parents at seventeen? “Mom!” he whispered through the door. “Mom!” “Come in, sweetheart.” Mom was in the big chair, legs tucked up, with a book on her lap. But she hadn’t been reading; she’d been staring off into the forest. Never fake a faker. “How are you feeling, Mom?” “Good.” Total lie. One look at her, and you’d think she was going through chemo.
