This Must Be the Place

Ari, in 2010, meets with the school counselor at his boarding school. The counselor is prepared for a socially stunted, frightened teen who is struggling at school. What he finds instead is a confident, highly intelligent, and well-spoken young man capable of advocating for himself. The problem is that he and a girl, Sophie, have gotten so intensely involved that they’re pulling away from other students. Ari explains that they avoid the drugs, drinking, and other rule breaking behaviors that so many of the other students engage in. When the counselor tries to probe Ari for information on his family situation, Ari refuses to continue and leaves to return to his history exam.

Following his mother’s death in 1986, Daniel’s father takes all of Teresa’s things to the thrift shop without giving Daniel an opportunity to take anything for himself. After a drunken argument with his father, Daniel storms out, determined never to come back. He spends several days with friends and family, drowning his sorrows and visiting the thrift shop daily to try to find his mother’s belongings. On the day he is arrested, he takes a comb that he believes belonged to her accidentally without paying. He goes to the cemetery and sees a man, likely Johnny Demarco, standing at his mother’s grave.