Noah kicks my foot under the table.

“A dog?” Mama says. “Where was she?”

Noah raises his eyebrows and looks at me with wide eyes: a warning.

“She was in the woods,” I say, ignoring Noah and his eyebrows.

Mama looks at Noah now like he’s in trouble, but I don’t understand why anyone has to be in trouble at all. Nothing bad happened, except for the part where the dog ran back into the woods.

Noah holds his hands up in front of him and says, “Hey, she snuck out!”

“Sadie, you know you’re not supposed to go into the woods by yourself,” Mama scolds. “And I know we taught you better than to approach any dog you don’t know.”

“But she was calling me.”

Noah mumbles through a mouthful of pizza, “You’re such a weirdo.”

“Noah,” Mama says, giving him a look. Then to me, she says, “I’m sure she belongs to someone, Sadie. She probably just wandered off the trail.”

“But she was limping, and she had this cut above her eye,” I tell her, pointing to my own eyebrow. “Mom, I thought maybe you and me could go and look for her after dinner?”

I wait, but when she doesn’t respond I repeat, “Mom?”

“Honey?” Mama places her hand on Mom’s arm.

“Oh,” she says, blinking her eyes like she’s just woken up from a daydream, the way Gramps had earlier. “Sorry, what?” she says, looking around the table.

“Mom, I was telling you about the dog I found today.”

She looks down at her plate, where she hasn’t touched her pizza, and says, “I’m sorry, I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” She pauses, frowning. “I think I might go upstairs and take a little nap. I’m feeling pretty tired.”

“But Mom, what about the dog? I think she needs—”

“We’ll talk about the dog later, okay?” Mom says as she starts to stand up from the table.

“But Mom—” I try again.

This time Noah interrupts me. “But Mo-om,” he mimics me as he shoves half a slice of pizza in his mouth.

Butthead.

“I’ll be up in a bit,” Mama tells Mom as she leaves the room. Mama waits until we hear Mom’s footsteps on the stairs before she sits down on the edge of the seat next to me, and says, “Listen, Grandpa is coming to live with us and it’s going to be a big adjustment for everyone. I’m going to need you all to take on more responsibility. You are old enough to understand this,” she says. “And Noah, this goes for you too.”

“What did I do?” he says.

This time I shoot Noah a look.

“There are going to be some changes happening around here, and it’s important that we all understand what those changes are,” she continues.

“Changes about Gramps?” I ask.