"Look, dude, I want to talk to your sister," Victor told Tolliver. He had on the most manly face he could muster.

My mouth twitched, though I did my best to look neutral.

"Go right ahead," Tolliver said seriously. "Were you wanting me to leave the room?"

"No, dude," Victor said anxiously. He looked at his friend Barney, who shook his head, to reinforce Victor's denial. "No man, stay here."

The teenager turned his head to me. "You were in Nashville, so you know how bad that was," he said. "I mean, you know that was really awful."

I nodded.

"So my mom—my stepmom—flipped out for a while."

"Flipped out how?" I sat forward, focused my attention on the young man. Not completely to my surprise, Barney took Victor's hand. Victor looked startled, but not at having his hand held by another male. He was just surprised Barney felt it was okay to do that in front of us. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Victor squeezed Barney's fingers in a tight grip.

"She was all… using pills, you know? She got really strung out. Felicia was having to drive over to Nashville from Memphis all the time to make sure the house was running okay."

"That must have been really hard," I said, trying to sound both gentle and encouraging.

"It was," he said simply. "My grades went way down, and I was missing my sister, and it was really bad. My dad tried to keep going to work, and my mom would get up and try to clean the house or cook, or just have lunch with friends, but she was crying all the time."

"The loss of a family member causes all kinds of changes," I said, which was just about meaningless. It couldn't begin to cover the "changes" the sudden absence of a sister could cause, as I had good reason to realize. I had no idea where Victor was headed with this, but I found myself increasingly curious, curious enough to provide conversational lube to keep the talk going.

"Yeah," he said simply. "We sure had a bunch." He seemed to gather himself. "You know, that morning? The morning she was—gone."

"Um-hm," I said.

"My dad was in the neighborhood," he said in a rush. "I spotted his car a couple of blocks from the house."

I didn't sit upright and shriek, "Oh my God!" but it was definitely an effort to stay in my relaxed position. "He was?" I said, quite calmly.