“We have company coming tomorrow, Nana. The curator from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where the Ahnighito is. It’s the heaviest meteorite ever moved by humans, and they had to build a stand for it that went down to the bedrock under the museum. He says he’ll be here around noon. He wants to see the stone.”

“Oh my. A visitor all the way from New York City. Do you think he’d like baked beans and biscuits for a noon-hour meal?”

“Sure, he’s coming a long way. Thanks, Nana.”

In some ways, Nana is like the big stone. No matter what’s happening around her, she stays the same. She takes ketchup and two onions out of the refrigerator. I realize she was asleep in her recliner this morning and doesn’t know what happened to our house.

“Nana, I have bad news. The water washed away our house.”

“Henry, don’t joke about something like that.” Nana frowns at me.

“I’m not, Nana. Nothing’s there anymore. No house, no garden, no stone wall. It’s all covered in water.”

“Oh no. All gone?” Nana sounds like Birdie. She stands there still holding the onions and ketchup.

“Yes, the only thing you can see is the top of the chimney,” I answer, “and pieces of the house all in the water.”

“Who would have thought the water would do that?” Even though you can’t see the stream from the kitchen window that faces the road, Nana goes over and stands there looking out. I wait for her to say something else, but she’s completely quiet.

I close my eyes and try to imagine I’m still in my own house, but I can’t do it. Our house smelled like the pinecones Mom used to start fires, and the herbs she hung from the kitchen ceiling. Nana’s house smells like old wallpaper and the cream she rubs on her knees. I sniffed near the walls when I was little and figured out that was where the house smell was coming from. Dad says it’s something called menthol in the knee cream that makes my eyes burn and stays in the air.

Nana’s house is like the replica. It’s what we’re left with now instead of our real house.

“Are you okay, Henry?” Nana asks.

Before I can answer, the door slams and I open my eyes. Mom and Dad and Birdie come in.

“Where’s James?” I ask.

“Wendell picked him up. But he’ll be staying over tomorrow night,” Mom says. Instead of helping Nana in the kitchen or putting wood in the stove, she goes into the living room and sits down on the couch. I’m not used to seeing Mom just sitting in the middle of the day unless she’s sick.

“Are you getting sick?” I ask her.