Tolliver sat down on the bathtub’s side. “Harper, Iona and Hank are raising them. They didn’t have to take them in; the state would have taken them if Iona and Hank hadn’t volunteered. I can almost guarantee that the court would have kept Mariella and Gracie in a foster home rather than giving them to us. We’re lucky Iona and Hank were willing to give it a shot. They’re older than most parents of kids that age. They’re strict because they’re scared the girls will turn out like your mom, or my dad. But they adopted the girls. They’re the parents.”

I opened my mouth, closed it. It was like a dam had broken in Tolliver’s head, and I was hearing thoughts I’d never heard before, pouring straight out of his mouth.

“Sure, they’re limited in their thinking,” he said. “But they’re the ones who have to cope with Gracie and Mariella, day after day. They go to the teacher conferences; they go to the meetings with the principal; they take the girls to get their shots; and they take them to the doctor when they’re sick. They enforce the bedtimes and the study times. They buy the clothes. They’ll get the braces.” He shrugged. “All that stuff. We can’t do that.”

“So what do you think we ought to do? Instead of what we’re doing?” I stepped out of the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the unmade bed. He followed and sat beside me. I braced my hands on my knees. I tried not to cry. “You think we should abandon our sisters? Almost the only family we’ve got?” I didn’t count Tolliver’s father, who’d been in the wind for months.

Tolliver squatted in front of me. “I think maybe we should come for Thanksgiving and Christmas, or Easter, or the girls’ birthdays . . . expected times. Arranged way in advance. At the most, twice a year. I think we should be more careful about what we say in front of the girls. Gracie told Iona that you said she was too rigid. Except Gracie said ‘frigid.’ ”

I tried not to smile, but I couldn’t help it. “Okay, you’re right about that. Bad-mouthing the people who take care of the girls, that’s not cool. I thought I was being so careful.”

“You try,” he said, and he smiled just a little. “It’s the expression on your face rather than your words . . . most of the time.”

“Okay, I get your point. But I thought we would become closer to them if we moved here. Maybe break down some walls between Iona and Hank and us. We’d see the girls more often, and the situation would get more relaxed. Maybe the girls could spend the weekend with us sometimes. Surely Iona and Hank want to be by themselves from time to time.”