Wish You Were Here by Stewart O’Nan

boyfriend.”
    â€œReally.”
    â€œMark. Very hot.”
    â€œIs he nice?”
    â€œWe rarely see him. He’s like a cat who comes prowling around at night. Don’t worry, you’ll have your own pretty soon.”
    â€œI can’t wait.”
    Far out, a boat smashed past, the engine coming to them late, like a plane’s. Meg sipped her coffee and felt the blood spread into her limbs, her sinuses open with a twinge. They sat looking out through the big screened panels at the gray band of the lake.
    â€œOne thing,” Lise said. “I told Sam he’s allowed one hour of video games a day, and that includes his Game Boy.”
    â€œI’ll tell Justin.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œNo problem. It’s a good excuse, actually.” If nothing else, they shared the bond of motherhood, the practical application of power. There was something adult and businesslike about their relationship, separate and matter-of-fact, while she and Ken were joined by the inexplicable ties of childhood, a dependence that came from the lifelong effort of defining each other.
    They were leaving for the flea market at ten, or whenever Ken returned.
    â€œHe starts to work and he loses track,” Lise said.
    She ducked back into her book and the sun came out, spangling the water, coloring the trees. The cottages on the far shore shone white as limestone. Meg followed a sailboat tilting in the wind off Midway, then, bored, looked to Lise, reading intently—Harry Potter, which she thought of as a kid’s book. This was what her mother and Arlene did, Meg thought: sat here and watched the lake all day as if they had nothing else to do. She was more like her father; she needed some project to work on, some complicated repair job, if only to keep busy. Maybethat was her problem. Her life was her project now, and work alone wouldn’t fix it.
    The danger of vacation, she thought, was having too much time to think.
    She contemplated another cup of coffee but knew it would send her into a spin, crack her into fragments, thoughts zipping off in all directions, too many of them dangerous. She needed something to eat, and went inside to see if there was anything that would appeal to Sarah.
    The fridge was the opposite of hers: so empty she could see through the racks, and clean. The eggs were probably fair game, the cheese bread she assumed her mother was saving. Milk, a small tub of margarine, cold cuts, a head of lettuce. The door was heavy with ancient, iffy condiments, some of which (like the purple horseradish) belonged to her father. The cupboard was half full of canned soup and taped-up boxes of pasta, packets of gravy mix, only the most nonperishable stuff—like a survivalist’s kitchen—but on the top shelf stood a row of cereal boxes. Her mother had remembered, because one was an unopened box of Cap’n Crunch, her favorite.
    It was so unexpected, this gift, so unlike her mother (who hated Cap’n Crunch, ridiculed the very idea of it), that for a second Meg wondered if she’d bought it because she felt sorry for her. But for her to remember, that was enough.
    She poured herself a bowl and took it out on the dock, holding it away from her as she walked so it didn’t spill. A green-headed mallard paddled under the boards as she crossed above. With every step, the planks gave a little, swayed like a shaky bridge. The wind was up, and she wished she’d brought her sunglasses. She settled herself on the bench and dug in before the cereal got soggy, feeling the sugar energize the muscles of her jaw, a tingling release of enzymes. The rush reminded her of getting high.
    She held the bowl close to her chin and scooped up a spoonful, painfully sweet on her teeth, and suddenly thought of Jeff. It was nearly a year, and yet he could still paralyze her, make her mind turn inward and begin chewing at herself like Rufus with a hot spot. Jeff had left because she was old and