“Maybe so, but I think you need it. Being the only person taking care of the world is hard work.”

I could have protested, annoyed as I was. I could have acted tough, and insisted on driving, but if I stayed behind the wheel, Summer was sure to keep trying to analyze me. I didn’t like being seen before I had a better view of myself. It made me itch with discomfort. I peeled the mask off my face, stuffed it into my empty paper coffee cup, and rubbed the rest of the lotion into my skin.

We were just outside of Baker, California, so the transition was an easy one. Holly grumbled but didn’t fully wake. Once Summer was settled behind the wheel and had produced a blow-up travel pillow for my comfort, we were off again. “You do have a driver’s license, don’t you, Summer?”

“Of course I do.”

“And no detours or funny business. No pit stop at some friends who can give us better shock absorbers or anything. I don’t want to wake up in Death Valley and have to drink my shampoo or something.”

Summer didn’t reply, and I said, “Summer. I’m serious.”

“I promise not to deviate from the route in any way. Except for a potty break at a rest stop.”

Satisfied, I tucked my neck into the pillow and closed my eyes, but I didn’t fall asleep. Sometimes my disorder was stubborn during appropriate sleep times. That’s what made it a disorder, I guess.

Summer’s question was like a pea in a mattress keeping me awake. What do you want?

I remembered when Maddie was a baby, not even a year old. I’d been so unprepared to keep a human alive by myself. I knew I’d be exhausted from a lack of sleep, but I didn’t know I’d spend my days smelling of spoiled breast milk and trying to heal a yeast infection that endlessly transferred between Maddie’s mouth and my nipples.

I’d had Maddie on my shoulder and was hauling the ungainly plastic recycling bin to the curb when my neighbor Mrs. Langdon offered to babysit for a day. She took Maddie as I stood next to a dandelion weed in my front yard that had a spiky prehistoric quality to it. I didn’t even consider pulling it out. I just hoped it flowered. Mrs. Langdon said, “What would you like to do with a full day off?” I stood in the sunshine, arms free at my sides, trying to think of something to say.

Mrs. Langdon looked at me expectantly, her purse of a mouth in a smile. My brain raced, struggling for an answer; acid rose in my throat. What activity would be good enough, knowing a handful of hours was all I was going to get? Should I shower, go to the grocery store, nap? Put a vegetable in the fridge? Sleep with a book on my chest and call it reading? What could possibly be good enough for a day of freedom, knowing I would be going right back to the gulag of baby care hours later? Wouldn’t it be better to just keep my head down and keep going?

My arms, light without Maddie in them, lifted almost of their own accord. I took my child from Mrs. Langdon’s arms and said, not unkindly, “How could I possibly know what I want? I don’t even exist anymore.”

I turned from her and trudged up the driveway. I heard her alarmed “Oh” and imagined the sound puffed out of her like a smoke ring from a cigarette.

She must have said something to Katie, because my cherished friend insisted I go to the doctor, where I heard myself say, “Joy? No, I don’t feel joy.”

Then there were peach pills that helped right away. Often, I thought, maybe too well. I definitely experienced more joy in Maddie’s dimpled elbows, her sausage legs, but since I felt less numb, I was also introduced to the deep end of sorrow. Sorrow of being alone. Sorrow at giving myself away so quickly. Sorrow at losing the fairy tale by marrying too early and losing so much.

I’d had boyfriends in high school and college. Learned about deep soulful kisses and real boy-induced orgasms from a soccer player who had beautiful thighs. I was a normal girl, with an acceptable level of self-esteem, somewhat avoidant of conflict, but learning to trust myself as a woman. I’d had my heart bruised and had hurt a few lovers on the way to becoming a person. I was a plucky skiff, rushing with full sails into an ocean of romantic possibility, until losing Holly, marrying Jeff, and watching my mother fade away after my dad died.

These events made me realize you could sink with the weight of loss and I’d better rein myself, my wants, in or get further hurt.

“Focus,” my dad would say when trying to get me to see everything as a fight. But I started to think that maybe not knowing what you wanted in the world was a safer way to go.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A CYNICAL, DOUBTFUL CUPCAKE

“Why aren’t we moving?”

Holly’s voice boomed from the back, and I startled awake. Summer’s travel pillow clung around my neck like a baby monkey. It was very early in the morning, but day or night, I always woke up guiltily, as if I were sleeping on the job of life.

Holly thrust her upper body between the driver and passenger seats, looking for answers. I searched for my phone to check the time and saw a list of notifications from Maddie and Drew. Unnerved, I felt my chest clutch with anxiety. I opened the messages from Maddie first.

MADDIE: Mom. I’m so overwhelmed

MADDIE: I can’t sleep. My job is hard, and the kids I have to babysit don’t like me

MADDIE: I know you’re asleep. Text when you wake up

Summer stretched her arms in a languid display of anti-alarm. “I got tired, and I didn’t want to wake anyone. These old bucket seats are surprisingly comfortable.”

I sent a quick text to Maddie, wanting so much to soothe her, knowing how my daughter got when she was swamped with stress.

ME: I’m here. Sorry, I was asleep.

I remembered her full-body hives during ACT testing junior year, teaching her breathing exercises, and smoothing hydrocortisone cream to ease the itching. “Hardship makes you interesting,” I told her, knowing that phrase hadn’t helped me that much. I didn’t feel more interesting.

ME: It can be overwhelming caring for kids. Especially kids who aren’t your own. But they have short memories and are very durable. I’m sure they love you. A good rule is sleep when they are sleeping, if you can. That’s what I did with you.

MADDIE: What?

I closed my eyes with frustration at myself. When would I learn? This was the cell phone generation. They felt a feeling. Offloaded it by texting their support person, usually a mother filled with guilt about not breastfeeding long enough or putting their child in day care so they could survive. The mother absorbed the anxiety and responded to the SOS text after the sender had already wandered off, unburdened.

ME: You’re overwhelmed?

MADDIE: We’re making a pillow fort. I can’t talk now

My heart rate slowed in relief, but once again, there I was. The slow learner. On the other hand, there was Summer. Clearly in the wrong, not caring two shits that she’d gone rogue again. She had parked the van, and there she sat, stretching like she hadn’t done anything wrong. Like she hadn’t deviated from the plan of driving without stopping.

Holly’s head disappeared from view, and I was vaguely aware that the side door of the camper opened. She was at the driver’s-side window in seconds. “I’ll drive.”

I loved that Holly had no influence over her. By all accounts, Summer shouldn’t have been traveling with us. We didn’t know her, she’d done us several “favors” we didn’t ask for, and yet she felt 100 percent entitled to be with us. She acted like we’d been friends for years, was part of the squad, and had equal voting rights in all things. Filled with admiration, I wanted to study her, see how Summer did it.

“My friend lives here. Let’s pee and get coffee and then hit the road,” said Summer.

“We’re parked outside your friend’s house? That’s a coincidence,” Holly said. But she said it like, That’s bullshit.

“No, it’s not. The GPS took us within five blocks, and I thought this was a fair give-and-take for staying on our route, like I promised Sam before she fell asleep. You can’t park just anywhere and sleep, you know. We aren’t gypsies.”

“We weren’t going to pull over anywhere, remember? We were going to keep moving until we got to Utah,” said Holly.

“Well, I didn’t agree to that,” said Summer.

I respected the lunatic more and more. To have that kind of confidence, that brand of surety that you were wanted. This is what Holly had, and I laughed inwardly thinking how that conversation would go, the one where I pointed out how Summer and Holly were similar. I literally considered digging in my bag to take notes on this interaction for a future conversation with Katie.

“We’re not on a college road trip. You’re not twenty, Holly.” Summer brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “We’ve all been flying, are probably dehydrated, any one of us could have fallen asleep driving. I made the safe decision and pulled over in a perfectly acceptable place.”

Holly turned her Medusa gaze on me and said, “Sam?”