“Come on, Frances,” I told her. Mom, Paige, and I brought her to Paige’s bed.

“Don’t go,” she said. “Come here, gwusis. Abin.” Sit, she said.

She wrapped her arm around me, pulled me in. She scratched at my head, massaged my scalp. She sniffled. Paige was standing there, watching, and Mom was coming back with the couch blankets. She dropped them onto the floor and made a bed large enough for her and Paige to sleep on.

“I’m sorry,” Grammy said. “I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have done it.”

I leaned harder into Grammy’s holding. Mom’s eyes were on me, wondering. “Frances,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”

Grammy let go of me and leaned away. “But you shouldn’t have tricked me,” she said. Her voice quivered the louder she spoke. “That was not right.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I wondered if Robbie was sorry for dying.

Grammy shook her head. “You two need to leave,” she said to Mom and Paige.

They stood in the hallway, and I heard Paige telling Mom about the cigarettes, and I tried to listen to how she told the story—because how it was told mattered—but then Grammy grabbed me by the shoulders and pointed her long finger in my face. “You think that was right, what you did?”

I grabbed the mattress hard; I couldn’t go with it. I pulled my face away from her finger. “You’re sick, Grammy.”

“Jistowks!”

Mom and Paige looked in.

“Get out!” Grammy told them. “I said, get out!”

“David,” Mom said. “Come on.”

I tried to get up, but Grammy pulled me back down, and then I wiggled loose from Grammy’s grip. When I ran she grabbed my leg, and I fell forward onto my face.

“That’s enough!” Mom said. She was rough with me as she picked me up and pushed me out of the room and slammed the door.

In the living room, Frick sat in the rocking chair, dozing, a bottle of wine at his feet. When I came in, one of his eyes opened and he looked at me.

“You want a cigarette?” was all he said, and he laughed himself to sleep in the chair.