GUS

OUR CARAVAN HEADS for Spence Salvage under starlight. Mrs. Spence’s van takes the lead, followed by the station wagon, followed by us. Tamara put us three in her truck without a word, probably so we could have a few minutes of peace.

“You okay?”

Tam stares at me. “You kidding me right now? You’re asking me?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Gus. You should be worried about your own self.”

“No.” There’s not a lot of room in the truck, so Kalyn’s pressed against me, thighs and of course fingers. “People worrying only about themselves leads to lies and murder.”

“Fair point.”

Main Street is still cordoned off—guess a riot leaves more of a wreck than a parade does—so the caravan takes bumpy back roads to the edge of town. Ms. Patrick’s car kisses the lips of potholes.

“I wasn’t expecting the whole Scooby Gang to volunteer,” Kalyn grumbles. The clock under the dashboard reads 7:41 p.m.

It took too long to get us out of the house. Three people offered to do the dishes before Ms. Patrick elbowed her way to the sink. No one stayed behind.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Mrs. Spence told Mom while we gathered in the driveway. “You’d better testify and help get my husband out, now we’re kind of family.”

Can families really be broken and made so easily? I don’t know. But Kalyn is on one side of me, and Tam is on the other, and Phil is just behind me, and I love them all.

“Are you really moving out?” I ask Tam.

“I don’t know, Gus. It’s been a wild night, and not in a good way.” She eases the truck onto a road cutting through fields; we’ve already reached Harrison Farm. A blob of Angus’s spit smacks our windshield as we pick up speed. “All these years I’ve been with your mom, she never mentioned being with anyone else. I figured she must’ve been, because we’ve all got the sadness of something in us. I never cared. It’s not like I didn’t have my own drama. But this . . .”

“Did you really spend last night with your family?”

We slam into a puddle.

“I’ve only got one family these days. I stayed in a Super 8 last night.”

It’s not nice of me to feel relieved. But if you can make and break a family, I like to think you wouldn’t keep trying to remake a seriously broken one. I’d rather think you’d keep the ones made on purpose.

“I’m proud of you, sticking up for that dead girl,” Tam says suddenly. “I remember reading about it. When she died. I didn’t know anything about her. It was just such an awful thing.”

“What happened?” Kalyn asks.

“I think it was a freak accident. She pulled an aerosol can from a firepit, and it blew up in her face. Not the kind of obituary you forget.”

“She can’t have been old.”

“Older than either of your dads were before their lives were taken away from them.” There’s something silencing about the way Tam refers to both dads as casualties.

Harrison Farm is more than decrepit. The back of the barn has collapsed in on itself, a splintered shipwreck in tall grass. This penultimate road is more like a trail, pocked with puddles, but our caravan barely slows. We hit the M-12, cars coated in mud. It’s 7:49.

As the caravan starts up the last hill, my phone buzzes. The number seems familiar, but I can’t place it until I pick up.

“Gus? It’s Mr. Wheeler. Is Phil with you? He hasn’t been answering his phone.”

I glance at Phil in the rearview. “Yeah, he’s here. John, too.”

“Where are you? Not trapped downtown?”

“No, we’re okay.” I put him on speakerphone.

“Hello, Dad,” Phil drones. “Let me reassure you that I have killed no one.”

His sigh of relief becomes a burst of static. “And no one is hurt?”

Phil seems off, in some indefinable way, and we’re all a little hurt, but Tam speaks up, “They’re fine, Colin.”

“Thank you, Tamara. Have you seen the news? The parade, no, the protest, is being replayed on national television. Partly because of the controversial nature of the case, partly the mock hanging, and partly the dramatic costuming, I’d say. Please promise me you’ll all stay in tonight.”

“Darn,” Kalyn scoffs, “guess we’ll have to miss the game.” It’s 7:52.

“Haven’t you heard? They canceled the game.”

Tam whistles. “The people of Samsboro won’t like that one bit.”

“They don’t, and that’s why you have to stay safe. Downtown’s a wreck, and based on the coverage, Spence Salvage looks like a war zone.”

“Um,” Kalyn says as we crest the hill.

It isn’t quite pitchforks. It isn’t quite the whole town. But I feel, actually and really, that we might finally be stuck in one of Phil’s dystopian movies.

Stretched along the road, vehicle after vehicle spans the length of Spence Salvage. Some are news vans, but most aren’t. A huge pickup blocks the driveway. People sit on the hoods of cars or congregate with posters in the ditches. I don’t need to hear what they’re hollering.

The first vehicles in our caravan have rolled into it.

“You know,” Tam says, hitting the brakes and switching into reverse, “something tells me we shouldn’t be running into that mess.”

“What’s going on?” Mr. Wheeler demands. “I thought you said you were at home?”

“Yeah, well,” Kalyn growls, “guess home is relative. Tam, turn the car around.”

I gape at her. “But—your dad—”

“Thanks, Gus. But he’s not going anywhere. Dad can call tomorrow. Mr. Wheeler, we’ve got other calls to make, but can you handle a sleepover tonight?”

“Well, I suppose so, but who is this? And—”

She hangs up the phone before he can argue.

“Let’s go back,” she says as we stare out at her home in ruins. It strikes me that our entire lives have been invaded by strangers, and this is just another illustration of the point, this swarm of people who know nothing laying claims on our lives.

“That’s very rational of you,” Phil observes quietly.

“Yeah, well,” she says, leaning her head on my shoulder, “I’ve had enough for now.”

“Enough of what?” I ask.

“Everything, I guess.”

“For now and always,” Tam says.