It stood a leaning, crumpled two stories, gutters hanging off the roof, the chimney caved in. The windows were all busted out with garbage bags and cardboard taped over them, and the front door barely hung on its hinges. I followed George inside, the boards bending under my every step. In the living room the TV played talk shows while the Urquhart girl slept on the couch, snoring. Somewhere up a creaky flight of stairs with a busted railing I heard the sound of a baby crying. I wondered where its mother and father were, who else was up there in the darkened rooms.

“Stop gawking and come on,” said George. He led me to the kitchen, where the Urquhart grandmother was waiting on me. The place was filthy—dishes piled up in the sink, a refrigerator grumbling in a corner, the thick scent of something odd bubbling on the stove. The grandmother sat at a little round table, squat and hunched over as a mole. She wore a dirty blue dress and had a big warty nose that made her look like one of those cheap fortune-tellers you see in New Orleans. She had an old yellow-paged legal pad and a Bic pen in front of her. The room was dark, a single purple candle burning on the table between us.

“Welcome,” she said, “to this shithole I call home. Have you a seat.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I guess.”

I sat down across from her. George stood over by the refrigerator and lit a cigarette. He leaned against the wall, this weird smirk on his face, just watching me.

“It wasn’t always like this, you know,” said Mrs. Urquhart. “Not ten years ago, this was a good place to live.”

“What happened?”

“Used to be I cared,” she said. “Used to be I had some pride in myself, in my family. But we’re cursed, I understand that. There’s no fighting time, what it does to you. So I gave up on trying to be respectable. Now all I want is my boy back.”

“Your boy?” I said. “You mean Carl?”

“Mmm-hmm. My boy.”

“Well, I don’t know where Carl is,” I said, “so I don’t see how I can help you.”

Mrs. Urquhart shut her eyes a minute and hummed to herself like she was saying some kind of weird prayer. I looked over at George, but he just frowned and sucked on his cigarette. All the while Mrs. Urquhart kept on humming.