Mom comes out after a while. She has a towel in her hand—she’s wearing a swimsuit. Granma follows her, in a baseball cap, to keep the sun out of her eyes. It’s starting to get pretty hot, and I can see bits of dust floating in the light between the bamboo leaves.

“Where’s Ben?” Mom asks.

Granma takes a folding chair from the back porch and starts setting it up in the grass.

“Maybe he’s on his bike somewhere.”

“Did he tell you he was going out?”

“I don’t remember. He asked to be excused from the breakfast table.”

“That’s not the same thing. Do you think I should look for him?”

“He’s probably in his room or in the bathroom. Don’t worry about him. He’s fine.”

But Mom gets up anyway (she was lying on her towel in the grass) and goes to the shed. Then she lies down again.

“His bike is still there.”

“You worry too much, Jenny.”

“He’s not the happy-go-lucky kid he looks like. He tells me things he doesn’t tell you.”

“He doesn’t look like a happy-go-lucky kid.”

“That’s why I worry. We had a fight last night.”

“What about?”

But Mom doesn’t say anything for a while. Then she says, “Nothing much. Just what you’d expect. It wasn’t really a fight.”

The lawn looks very bright from where I’m sitting, and Mom and Granma are partly hidden by the bamboo leaves. But I can see them, too. Granma pushes herself up out of the lawn chair, and for a second I think she’s going into the house, maybe to check on me, but she stops at the back door and bends down. Then she straightens up and starts moving slowly around the patio. I can see a hose in her hands—she’s watering her flowerpots, and when Mom says something to her, Granma says, “You have to speak up. I can’t hear you.”

“I talked to that woman at the middle school today.”

“What’d she say?”

“Looks like I have a job.”

Granma keeps watering the flowers—she gives every pot a good soak. After a minute, she turns off the hose and walks slowly back to her lawn chair. Mom sits up in the grass.

“Aren’t you going to say something?”

“Are you sure you’re ready to go back to work?”

“I meant something like, congratulations.” Mom laughs.

“I’m happy for you, Jenny. Of course I am. I just worry about Ben.”

“He’ll be in school anyway.”

Mom lies down again; she puts her sunglasses back on. I’m sitting very still now because I feel like if I even move an inch, somebody will hear me. There are a lot of old bamboo leaves on the ground. It’s very dry; everything rustles.

“Kids get embarrassed by that kind of thing,” Granma says.

“What kind of thing?”

“Going to school where their mom works.”

“Well, at least I can keep an eye on him. Anyway,” she adds, after a minute, “I’m only part-time. He’ll hardly know I’m there.”