“Am I creepy?”

She turns to look at me, with her hands on her hips. “What are you talking about? Who said that?”

“Some boy in my class.”

“What boy?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I said, what boy?”

“It doesn’t matter! Just forget about it.” For some reason I’m shouting.

“Now you listen to me,” Granma says, and she still sounds angry. It’s the voice she uses if she wants you to do something, and there’s no point contradicting her. But there are tears in her eyes as well. “You are my beautiful boy. And anybody says anything different will have to deal with me.”

“But they don’t have to.”

“What?”

“They don’t have to deal with you. You’re not even around when they say it. Anyway, I know you love me, that’s not what I mean. I mean like, if you didn’t know me, if you met me, would you think, He never says anything, he just kind of hangs around all the time, carrying those bags?”

She’s just staring at me now. Her wispy gray hair has slipped out of the bun. It’s the end of the day and she looks old and tired.

“Is that what you’d think?” I ask again.

“That is not what I would think,” she says.

“But how do you know?”

“Because I do know you, and I know that you’re the gentlest, most honest—”

“But that’s not what I’m asking. Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.”

“Who called you creepy?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. That is not a thing you’re allowed to call another kid.”

“Kids call each other stuff like that all the time,” I say. “Anyway, I don’t want to discuss this anymore. I just want to watch TV.”

She kisses me on the head. “You are my beautiful boy,” she says again. “It wouldn’t kill you to get a locker, though. And stop carrying around those bags.”

Mom still isn’t back by the time I go to bed. Granma lets me write in my diary for a few minutes, but then she comes in to turn the lights off. She sits on my bed afterward, and I shift a little to give her some room.

“Are you okay?” she says.

“I’m fine. Dad says there’s a school in London just for Americans.”

“I’m sure there is. Is that what you want to do? Do you want to move to London?”

“I don’t know, Granma. It’s like—I’ve told a couple people about it, like, This isn’t my life, I have this other life. So they don’t feel sorry for me.”

“And you miss your dad,” Granma says.

“Mom sometimes tells me, You’re just like your father. Not even when she’s mad at me—sometimes I think she likes it. But then if she likes him, why are we even here? And if she doesn’t like him, what about me? Why does she like me? I don’t understand.”

After a moment, she asks, “Don’t you like it here?”

“Of course I like it.”