I say, “Manny, if you really feel that we can’t afford to lose even one person, why are you encouraging us to attack that tower? We could all die.”

“Or we could all live,” he says. “Now go. Play cornhole or something. I have work to do.”

I’ve never played cornhole indoors before. We’re in the kitchen, in the middle of our third game. Trey and I won the first, tossing bean bags onto a board that says “Life is good, but it’s even better at the Lake.” Tanq and Wyatt won the second game. This is the tiebreaker.

Between turns, Tanq is gobbling strawberry yogurt like it’s going out of style. Emmaline runs back and forth between us and the board, making herself part of the game using a set of rules I’m not privy to. Whenever a bag flies through the air, she gives a little yelp, like it’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to her.

Wyatt is fixated on the board, his pit bull jaw frozen like a block of ice as though afraid to say too much. Maybe he feels like the odd man out, which is fine with me. I can’t help but wonder, though, what potential Manny sees in him.

So I throw the poor puppy a bone.

“Wyatt, did you leave a lot of family behind to come here?” I ask as I toss the bag. It lands just south of the hole, but remains on the board. One point.

“Sure. I mean they were all dead, but yeah.” He says it casually, but his cheek muscles work overtime to conceal something.

“Sisters? Brothers? Parents? You don’t have to talk about them if you don’t want to, but if we’re going to be hanging out, we might as well get to know each other.”

It sounds clumsy as soon as it leaves my mouth, but Wyatt surprises me by responding in earnest. “Three sisters, no brothers. I was the second oldest. My mom was a homemaker. My dad was a high school social studies teacher and football coach.”

“You miss them?” Tanq says, tossing her own bean bag, but she throws too hard and it slides off the board.

“Of course I miss them. My older sister Willa most of all. And my dad. It’s weird; I never realized I had favorites until I lost all of them. I loved my mom, but . . . I’d cut off an arm to see my dad again, get his advice, ask him which of Manny’s three options he’d go with.”

“I miss my sister so much it’s like a knife in my stomach,” Trey says. His toss lands right in the hole. Nothing but net. Or plywood, I guess.