The next afternoon, I was busy working on a puzzle when the doorbell rang. Leah went to answer it. I was so involved in what I was doing that even though I heard her voice, it was so far in the back of my head that she startled me when she put her hand on my shoulder.

“Franny.” Her fingertips brushed the back of my neck as she spoke. They felt cool, like autumn. “There’s someone here to see you.”

When I looked up, my grandmother lowered her face close to mine. I didn’t realize how empty I was until her face was all I could see.

“How are you, Franny?” Her hair was parted down the middle and hung like two big S’s on either side of her head. I snuggled into her chest, which looked like two cement slabs but was deceivingly soft. A whimper came up through my throat that I thought would stay hidden in the folds of her blouse, but she heard it and dislodged herself from me. She put her face to mine. “Franny, how are you?”

I knew this time I needed to answer.

I looked into her eyes, which were blue like the color of wind, and then suddenly I began to cry. She rocked me back and forth like I was a doll. When my lips finally stopped trembling, my head felt thick and heavy. As if on command, my eyes closed and instantly I was asleep.

I dreamt of falling and when I woke, I was still in her arms, but now we were both sitting on the couch. I felt disheveled and clumsy, like I had just traveled a long way. I was sweating and she pushed the hair that had gotten stuck to my forehead away. When I shivered, she brought me closer in to her body.

“Franny,” she whispered. “You have to be a brave girl. I promise that I will come and visit you again. Is Leah kind?”

I nodded.

“Good,” she continued. “You are safe here, Franny. I know that you miss Mommy and Matilda. You’ll see them again, I’m sure.”

I started to fidget. I don’t think I really understood until that moment what it actually meant to have my mother and sister disappear. I was going to have to figure things out for myself, by myself, from this point forward. It had taken nine years for my mother to understand who I was and what I needed. And when she left, she took all of that with her. I was back to square one, and left in the care of a woman I barely knew.

“Do you know why? Why she left me?”

She looked at me but didn’t answer, and for a minute, I wondered if I had even asked it out loud.