“Who knows? He might come home right in the middle of eating. Never did miss a meal, did he?”

I sat down and tried to swallow, but the food got stuck in my throat. I could hear Gloria and Telly chewing. The phone rang and Gloria got up to answer it. “No,” she said. “Kind of you, but we’re just trying to have quiet family time together.”

Gloria sat down again and said, “Just Erma. Wondering if I wanted her to pop by for company.” She took a long drink of water and said, “But I told her I got you here.”

“Yes, you surely do, Glow. We’re going to get through this. I just got this sense Rowan’ll be home soon.”

“You do?”

“I do,” he said, and he touched her hand.

Gloria’s eyes turned wet, but she didn’t cry. “Sometimes it takes a tragedy to put everything right.”

Then she was talking about all the stuff she wanted to do. Paint the front porch and fix up the basement and next summer grow more vegetables out back. Maybe even try a few watermelon plants. Aunt Erma got some small ones in her backyard.

“So much to do when Rowan comes home. Right, Telly?”

Telly coughed and smiled at me, and then he put a big spoon of potato salad and a whole roll of ham into his mouth.

ROWAN

Carl looked terrible. His face was puffed, and sections of his chin were hairless and raw. There were smears of blood on his cheeks and nose, probably from his injured hands, which he kept curled against his chest. The sight of him standing in front of me in his oversized coat, his eyes dark and confused, made my chest fill with sadness. But also a tight knot of fear.

“It was just a man, Carl.” I remembered what he kept saying about two people together. “He lives by himself around the lake. He asked if I caught a fish.”

His eyes narrowed, and I thought he was going to ask me more questions, but instead he whistled softly to call Girl back. We went inside and I dug around in the kitchen again, found a can of noodles in tomato sauce and heated it in a saucepan. I made toast, put slices in the bottom of two bowls, and poured the sloppy orange mess over the top. Carl came into the room, his fingers covered in bandages. “That feels better, hey Carl?” I said, sliding the food toward him across the counter.

“Doesn’t hurt,” he said.

Carl took only a few bites, then placed the bowl on the floor. Girl trotted over and stuck her snout into it.

“Didn’t like it?”

“I did. But Girl likes it too.”

She lapped up every drop.