He was in fact rooted to that part of the floor. He imagined leaving; shoving Llewelyn, running past the huge sculpture that he and his cousins were terrified of jostling whenever they played on his aunt’s living room, past the couch where he would sit with Justin, watching cartoons, out the front door and past the round slate table where he and Justin had built matching F-4 Phantom model kits two months ago. And it was there that his imagination ended, because beyond that threshold was the world he couldn’t understand, where his entire Home Base of textbooks, and tattered Composition notebooks, and colored pens and drawing pads and at least one half-finished model were sitting in a locked car inside plastic bags.

His aunt was looking at him. She appeared to have said something for which she was awaiting a response. In her dining room, a circle of wrought expressions was at the table, and one seat, unmistakably his, was empty. Any hint of ambiguity had left the house in lock-step with his phantom self.

“Would you sit down, please?” The “please” belied the set of his aunt’s jaw. He pulled the chair away from the table, and sat.