And every single thing I did wrong in the following four months came out of that two-second assessment, because a man who thinks he has found a rescue behaves in a specific way, and it is not a good way, and it took a very direct woman and about eleven arguments to get it out of me.

What I did that night, though — before any of that — was drive my mother home.

She did not say one word between Congress and her house in Westlake, which is a twenty-two minute drive.

I pulled into her driveway and put it in park and neither of us moved.

And I said: “Mom.

How old is he?”

And my mother said, “I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

“Yes you do.”

She had her hands in her lap and she was looking at the garage door.

“It’s late, Wesley.”