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darkness. She went to the front door and opened it, looked out the screen door, then went outside. October nights were cool and alive with the sound of crickets or katydids or whatever the hell it was in the woods that made so much noise. Cicadas? Didn’t they come out only every seventeen years...?
    She was freaking out. She wished for a cigarette, even one of Jen’s e-cigs. Instead, she tapped out another message.

    ANSWER ME.

    Another five minutes passed. An eternity. She was just about to send another message, thinking of calling the police, or at the very least Jeff, when her phone shook in her hand and played its distinctive triple ding.

    ran too far

    She hadn’t realized how slick her hands had become with sweat until her phone slipped from her grasp. She caught it before it could hit the sidewalk. She typed a reply. Where? I’ll come get you.

    No. I’ll come home.

    She wasn’t going to play this game with him. Instead of another text, Stella called. Tristan sounded out of breath when he answered, and she didn’t bother to identify herself. “What did I tell you about getting home before dark?”
    She’d jumped on him too hard; she heard it in his reply. “Sorry.”
    “I’ll come get you.”
    He hesitated, panting. “Pick me up at Sheetz.”
    She frowned, estimating the distance from their house to the convenience store. “You ran to Sheetz?”
    “Just pick me up there. I want to get something to eat anyway.”
    There was another argument there, a reminder about the sandwich she’d made for him and that he’d rejected, but what sort of shitty mother let her kid go hungry? She sighed and disconnected.
    He was waiting for her at one of the outside tables, already drinking from one of those insanely huge fountain drinks and eating a burrito when she pulled into the parking lot. Bugs swooped and swarmed, dive-bombing him and the overhead lights that made him look extra pale. His hair stuck up in the back and clung to his forehead with sweat. He probably reeked.
    She kept herself from hugging him by pretending she was angry. The truth was, she was just glad to see him all in one piece. Not that she forgave him—there’d be recriminations for this. There had to be. She’d specifically told him not to run too far and to be home before dark, and he hadn’t been.
    But maybe she didn’t have to really punish him. Maybe her annoyance would be enough. Maybe only a few snakes had to come out of her hair. Half a momdusa, not the full-fledged explosion.
    She went inside and got herself a frozen latte, even though the temperature had dropped enough to make a hot coffee drink sound better. They gave her stomachaches, but she couldn’t resist. When she came back outside, Tristan had finished his food and crumpled the garbage. He was busy tapping away at his phone, playing a game or texting or Connexing or whatever it was the kids did these days.
    The car ride home was silent and stinky. She had to open the windows just to keep from choking on the overripe smell of teenage boy sweat, and Tristan turned the radio up so loud there was no chance of talking. He used to sing along with the songs, but he didn’t now. Stella did, fumbling the words, a little bit on purpose to lighten the mood between them even though she felt as though she had every right to be pissed.
    She wasn’t good at letting go. Not in her regular life. It had been one of the things Jeff had complained about, a flaw she wanted to deny but deep inside knew she couldn’t. Stella liked the last word. So when they got home and into the kitchen, she couldn’t resist one final poke.
    “You can take that sandwich for lunch tomorrow.”
    Her son, who’d once been a tiny baby, then a toddler dragging his toy bear in the dirt, her boy who was now on his way to being a man, frowned. He shrugged and ran his fingers through his dirty hair in a way disconcertingly like his father had done when they’d first met. It was a panty twister, that move, and