It’s like those seemingly overcautious kid-safety rules nowadays. Your child has to wear a bike helmet no matter what. You have to use a special mulch in playgrounds and you can’t have any jungle gym where a kid could climb too high and oh yeah, your child shouldn’t walk three blocks without an escort and wait, where is your mouth guard and eye protection? And it is so easy to poke fun at that stuff and then some wiseass sends out a random e-mail saying, “Hey, we all did that and survived.” But the truth is, a lot of kids didn’t survive. Kids did have a ton of freedom back then. They did not know what evil lurked in the darkness. Some of them went to sleepaway camp in the days when security was lax and you let kids be kids. Some of those kids sneaked into the woods at night and were never seen again.

There was an obvious magic to a college campus. There is no entity more protected, more shielded, and while it was easy to complain about that, it was also how it should be. Some things grow better in a vacuum. It was a place to feel safe when you’re young—but when you’re older, like she and Lonnie, it started becoming a place to hide.

The discussion was lively. Hands shot up. Students debated one another. This was the high of the job. Truth was, she had very little in her life. But she loved these kids. Every semester she fell in love all over again. They were her family, from either September through December or January through May. Then they left her. Some came back. Very few. And she was always glad to see them. But they were never her family again. Only the current students achieved that status. It was weird.

I parked in the lot in the southwest corner. I tilted the rearview mirror and then, to paraphrase Springsteen, I checked my look in that mirror and wanted to change my clothes, my hair, my face.

“When I was in college,” Lucy began, “I had this friend. She was a twin. Fraternal, not identical. I guess that doesn’t make much of a difference, but with the identical, there seems to be a stronger bond. Anyway, when we were sophomores her sister died in a car crash. My friend had the strangest reaction. She was devastated, of course, but part of her was almost relieved. She thought, well, that’s it. God got me. That was my turn. I’m okay for now. I gave at the office. You lose a twin sister like that, you’re sorta safe the rest of your life. One heartbreaking tragedy per person. You know what I mean?” “I do.” “But life isn’t like that. Some get a lifetime pass. Others, like you, get more than your share. Much more. And the worst part is, it doesn’t make you immune to even more.” “Life ain’t fair,” I said.