They believed, in those early days, that Frank’s mother would go home just as soon as the baby was born and she was able to travel. But by the end of the summer, when the tobacco warehouses were filled with the sweet-smelling leaves, and wagons and trucks rumbled past the Lorraine Hotel, and Frank’s little brother, Horace, was already sitting, his mother was still saying that she wasn’t quite ready to travel, she needed more time, and because it was summer, Frank stayed there with her, his life shifting in tiny increments. “You really need to attend school,” his mother had said, “and your work will all transfer when we go back.”

By then, the women from Connecticut had left. There was the occasional letter with hopeful reports about the niece walking again, but as far as Frank knows, that never happened. They always asked when Frank’s mother would be returning to her home, and just the question being asked had felt encouraging, even though, months into the school year, he had begun to feel the dull edge of false hope. He and his mother and Horace lived tucked away in the back rooms of Preston’s modest house. The one bathroom was theirs, and Preston never went near it, as far as Frank knew; he said he bathed at his sister’s, and Frank suspected he did all else he had to do there as well, except peeing into the darkness off the porch, which he did late at night, when he didn’t know Frank was looking.

“We need to pay rent,” his mother had announced to Preston one night, also saying that she was happy to do all the cooking and cleaning and laundry. His mother and Preston had begun sitting on the porch together after Horace got quiet and when they thought Frank was asleep. Frank continued to ask—others did as well—when they would be returning to Massachusetts, and one of those times, he saw fear in Preston’s eyes, something he noticed every time that followed. It was not long after when his mother began talking about how much a baby needs a father, and how though no one would ever—could ever—replace Frank’s father, that Frank also needed a man in his life, someone who could teach him things.