I watch them as they watch the boy pick up my brother’s things. Mum’s smile slips a bit, Dad blinks his eyes dry, and I try to feel better.

This is what she wanted, but she doesn’t look pleased. She looks like she’s trying to be, the same way I do when someone gives me a present that I didn’t ask for.

When Dad leaves, I go with him, but Mum doesn’t move. Eventually, she comes down, holding the boy’s hand, and she’s wearing her old face, but you can still see her new face underneath.

“What would you like for dinner?” she asks, which is weird because she never asks us. She says you get what you’re given, but the boy says, “Nuggets.”

“Nuggets it is.”

When it’s ready, the boy sits in my brother’s seat and gobbles it down so fast, and Mum just laughs.

“What’s your name?” I ask, and she shoots me the worst stare.

“You know what his name is. His name’s Will.”

“No it’s not,” the boy says. “It’s Logan.”

“No,” Mum says. “It’s Will.”

He looks confused and stops eating. “Where’s my mummy?”

“She’s gone away for a while,” mine says. “She’s asked us to look after you.”

The boy’s lip wobbles, but he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t say anything else until Mum asks if he wants ice cream. I know what she’s doing, and it’s working.

Once, she said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and I didn’t know what she meant, but now I do. She’s bribing the boy with treats, but that only works until you start feeling sick.

IIII IIII IIII II

“I want to go home!”

The boy is shouting, and Mum’s trying to soothe him, but it’s not helping.

“Come here,” she says to me. “I need you to play with Will.”

I still won’t call him that, but Mum hates it when I say “the boy” or “Logan,” so I don’t call him anything.

“Be nice to him,” she says. “He needs to like it here.”

I used to love my family, but they don’t feel real anymore. Will is a dream, Mum’s always pretending, and Dad is super sad. I still love my brother, even though he’s gone, and every night I talk to him.

You must go somewhere when you die or what’s the point? That’s why I apologize and tell him how bad it is now, because I know he’s listening. I can’t apologize to Logan—it’s against the rules—so, instead, I ask him about his mum.