Amy felt her phone vibrate. She held it up. It was from Ian. DON'T ASK THE PRICE OF ANYTHING. DON'T SMILE. DON'T SAY "DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING CHEAPER?" DON'T Amy shoved the phone back in her pocket. "Just pretend to be Ian," she told Dan.

I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.

I loved all the parts of him, even the ones I didn't understand.

Oh, terrific," Dan muttered. "Just what we need. Another code! Why can't people just say what they mean? Why can't they say THE MAP IS IN THE DESK?

The road climbed into the mountains, Jonah taking the hairpin curves as fast as he dared. "You look so macho clutching the door handle that way," he said to Hamilton. "Just...be...careful," Hamilton said through clenched teeth.

But while I'd be their daughter, while I'd eat the roast and come home from dates and wash the dishes, I would also be myself. I would love my mother, but I'd never want to be her again. I would never be what someone else wanted me to be. I would never laugh at a joke I didn't think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth-teller, starting today. That would be tough. But I was tougher.

I knew that the deepest of tragedies was simple: to love, and not to be loved in return.