“It won’t be fine when one day you’re blind. You already lucked out once bef—”

“I know,” I said. Don’t bring it up, I thought, and she said no more.

She sprayed a frying pan and turned the burner on medium. We were quiet. When the pan was hot she buttered one side of each slice and lay one down in the pan. It sizzled. She put two slices of cheese on top and then lay the other slice down, buttered side up. She flipped the sandwich over and it sizzled, hotter and louder. She turned the burner lower.

While the other side cooked she went in the bathroom and put on makeup. After a while, she hollered at me. “Check your sandwich, David.” With the spatula I peeked under the sandwich. It was black. I lifted it out of the pan, set it on my plate, and carried it to the table. The phone rang.

“Pew, you burn that sandwich?” Mom said. She picked up the phone. “What?”

The sandwich crunched between my teeth. Here we go, I thought.

“Why haven’t you called?” Mom took the phone to the bathroom with her and on the way she moved the phone from one ear to the other. “What do you mean they only let you use the phone once in a while? You can use the phone all the time there.”

Mom listened. “I don’t know,” she said. “How are you? How’s the program?”

“What’d you say?” Mom paused, and she leaned out the bathroom and looked at me. “He’s fine. Listen . . .” She was serious. “Hold on.” Mom left the bathroom and shut herself in her bedroom.

The house was quiet except for the hum of the fridge. I leaned in my seat toward the hallway, trying to listen. Nothing. I took a bite of my sandwich, set it down, and chewed and tiptoed to the hallway.

I heard words, sentence fragments, incoherent and jumbled. There was no context unless I gave them some. Eventually, I heard all I needed to: “He’s stealing my cigarettes.”

My stomach dropped and I wanted to puke. Mom had this way to make you want to die. I brought my plate to the sink and then sat in the living room. I looked at Mom’s pack and didn’t even want one.

Soon, Mom came out of the room and put the phone on the hook. She didn’t ask how the sandwich was. “I’m heading to Overtown soon,” she said, returning to the bathroom, and in time Mom’s makeup container snapped shut, and when she came out of the bathroom she said nothing to me and left. I could do no wrong when Paige was around, but the moment she was gone, the world in which we lived became my fault. I scraped the black burn off my grilled cheese.

. . .