I really needed to use the bathroom and it was too cold to go outside.

I made my way silently down the stairs. The kitchen closed itself in darkness. The woodstove clanked and ticked as dampered logs shifted and settled in the firebox. The kettle of water on the stove murmured to itself.

I craned my head around the stovepipe to see Gran’s door. Closed, no light. The whisper of the radio came softly to my ears. She even slept with the radio on since the accident.

Stepping silently across the rippled linoleum, I headed for the bathroom.

When I came out, the back bedroom door stood open before me. It stood wide open for the first time since Gramp died.

I paused in the middle of the hallway.

Caleb kept watch, alert on the scrap-wool runner. I took a step toward the door, bent down, stroked Caleb’s silky fur. He turned his head as I came forward and sniffed my leg. I dared a quick glance into the silent room.

The light from the bathroom spilled across the hall, throwing shadows on the drab green-and-gold wallpaper. On the foldaway cot, a woman—the mother I guess, Mrs. Trent—lay on her side, blankets mounded over a slender shoulder. On the other bed, the dying bed, a boy with dark curly hair lay on his back. He stared at the ceiling.

I held still, my heart thudding in my chest. I don’t know what I’d expected, but the sight of that sleepless boy rattled me.

I remembered what Gran said, about Ezra staying at his father’s bedside in the hospital. His father had been a bigshot at the plant.

My fingers laced through the fur on Caleb’s neck. I felt like a stranger in my own house, stooping there, staring at the boy, but I couldn’t move.

Why had I come across the hall anyway? Why didn’t I just use the bathroom and head straight back upstairs?

I wanted to see what he looked like. That’s why. Before he died, I wanted to see him.

My legs cramped from crouching. My feet went numb. I had to get up and move.

Maybe I made a noise as I stood. I don’t know.

Slowly the boy turned, staring at me with those unblinking eyes.

Caleb got up and stood beside me.

Feeling the dog against my leg brought some comfort. I had the urge to stamp the life back into my feet so I could leave. But I simply stood there, waiting for the pins and needles, held by the gaze of Ezra’s eyes.

Finally I felt the tingling come. I started backing away.

Softly, softly came a voice. Ezra’s voice. “I had a dog.”

I waited a few moments longer, in the hallway, my heart hammering, but he said no more.

As I reached the steps that led from the kitchen to my bedroom, I heard a moan behind me and then the sound of retching.

Back up in my room, I sat on my window seat, listening—to the news on the radio, to the boy downstairs. Finally, way past midnight, I slipped into my flannel gown, slid under the quilt, and clicked the radio off.