“I’m waiting for my check,” she said, and then she started in about some bingo game she won recently—“five thousand dollars,” she said, smiling, her hands folded—and how with the money she was going to renovate her kitchen, and if there was some left over she was going to fix up her back porch.

But she wouldn’t have money left over, because she won that money years back when the tribe first opened Super Bingo. What she won wasn’t even enough for the kitchen.

“It’s going to look so nice,” my grandmother said.

“I bet it will,” my mother said.

“You know,” my grandmother said, but I stopped listening to her. Wasn’t it only twenty-five hundred she won? And didn’t part of that get stolen by some rez rats when she was at church? Yeah, I think that’s what happened and why she couldn’t get the kitchen finished. No—maybe it was five thousand. Yeah, it was five thousand. She gave half of it to the church. Yeah! That was it. I remember. And when the pastor found out about that money of hers getting stolen he didn’t even offer to give back what she’d given to the church.

“You sleeping?” my grandmother asked.

I sat up straight and said no. But I think I was.

My grandmother laughed.

“He’s tired,” my mother said, and then she lied. “He just started working at UPS and they have him on nights.”

“Is that right?” my grandmother said.

“Sure is,” I said.

“Good for you. Good for you, gwus. You start paying rent now. You’re too old to be mooching off your mother. How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight” I said.

“Jesus,” she said. “Older than I thought.”

“Mom.”

“Can I use your bathroom?” I asked.

“Can you?” My grandmother cackled.

In the bathroom I didn’t go but flushed like I did, and then under the sink faucet I swallowed another pin.

They were talking about something they didn’t want me to hear, because they got quiet when I returned. When I sat down, my grandmother was smiling at me, smirking almost, like she knew the totality of my life, knew where I came from, where I was presently, and where I was going. And she kept on smirking at me, and then she nodded like she was agreeing on something, something about me—about where I was headed—and then she laughed and leaned forward and patted my knee.

“I had a brother . . .” she started to say.

Before we left that day my grandmother reminded me about the mail. “I’ll wait right here,” she said, and she stood half in her room, half in the hall.

Mom went and started the car and I waited near the front exit for a minute before I went back to my grandmother. She was still at her door, half in, half out.