I just sat there staring at him. Because I seriously couldn’t figure out what he was talking about.

“So…your dad’s out of jail?”

It was Rob’s turn to wince.

“No,” he said. And I realized I’d never actually said it before. You know. TheJ word. It had always been an unspoken acknowledgment between us, back when we’d been—whatever-we-were. “No, he’s still there. But before he got sent away, after he and my mom got divorced, he met someone else—”

Understanding finally dawned.

“So she’s your half sister,” I said.

“Right.” Rob reached for a tortilla chip, scooped up a large amount of guacamole with it, put it in his mouth, and chewed. I doubted he was even tasting it. He was just eating it to be doing something with his hands, which always seemed to have needed to be doing something, since the day I’d first met him, either messing with an engine or folding over a paperback or kneading a rag. “I didn’t know about her until she wrote to me this spring. See, she wasn’t getting along with her mother, and so she started writing to my dad and he told her about…about me and my mom. So one night she called, and…well. It’s something, to find out you have a little sister you never even knew you had.”

“I can imagine,” I said. Actually, I couldn’t. I was just saying that to say something.

“Her name’s Hannah,” Rob said. “Hannah Snyder. She’s a great kid. Really funny and kind of…well, feisty. Like you, a lot, actually.”

I smiled wanly. “Great,” I said. Because, you know, that’s the image I want the guy I’m in love with to have of me. Funny and feisty, like his little sister. Yeah. Thanks for that.

Not that I’m in love with Rob. Anymore, I mean.

“Things were…well, Hannah said things weren’t great for her at home,” Rob said. “I mean, with her mother. She was into some things—Hannah’s mom—that she shouldn’t have been into. Drugs and stuff. And men.” Rob cleared his throat and concentrated on dipping another chip. “Men who Hannah said made her feel uncomfortable. You know, um. On account of her getting older, and them—”