“Well, there are people who live to work, and people who work to live. Your father is the first kind of person. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”

“But the first thing Mom did when she got here was get a job.”

“Yes, but that’s only . . .”

“And Dad is always complaining about how hard he has to work.”

“What do you want me to say? These things are complicated.”

“Do you think they— Did they break up because of me?”

Granma looks at me. “I think for a long time you were the only thing keeping them together.”

But I don’t know if that’s true. Sometimes I remember . . . I remember them laughing when they didn’t think I was paying attention. Saying things to each other quietly, so I couldn’t hear. Sometimes when I lay in bed I used to listen to them watching TV. Talking while they watched. Their voices sounded different when I wasn’t around. Sometimes for no reason they would turn down the sound.

“All right.” Granma takes the pot off the burner—she pours the pasta into a colander, and the window over the sink starts to steam up. “If you wake him up, it’s no more than he deserves. But don’t take too long. Dinner is almost ready.”

There’s a telephone in the front hall, standing on an old-fashioned wooden desk with a built-in seat. Granma calls it “the telephone chair,” but it’s also where the mail ends up and she keeps her checkbook. I sit down and dial Dad’s number. Mom has written it on a Post-it note and stuck it to the wall. There are a lot of numbers.

I have to wait for a while before the phone stops clicking, and then the ringing tone comes in, beep and then beep and then beep. And then I hear my father breathing in my ear, as close as anything.

“Yes,” he says. It doesn’t sound like a question.

“Hi, Dad. Did I wake you up?”

“Ben?” There’s a pause at the other end. I hear a rustling noise, as if he’s sitting up in bed. “That’s okay. What’s on your mind?”

“I just wanted to talk to you.”

“So talk.” After a moment, he adds, “I’m sorry, Son. It’s been a long day. I’ve been working very hard. I was fast asleep.”

I don’t know what to talk to him about. I want to tell him about Mr. Tomski, but I can’t. I want to say, You have to get over here now, there’s something going on. But maybe nothing is going on, I don’t really know. I just have a feeling that . . . something is happening, which . . . it’s going to be hard to take back. Like, when Jake and I were horsing around in the kitchen, and then the mug broke. Even before it broke, you kind of knew, this is stupid, something is going to happen. “Two of my teachers had an argument today,” I tell him, just to say something.