“I want everyone to stop tiptoeing around me. I know I’ve struggled . . . am struggling with . . . things, but I am starting to see myself differently, and I want you all to try as well.”

“I think we can do that,” Liza said.

“I’m going to try a grief counselor like you suggested,” Janae told them.

Liza and Bev looked at each other in a moment of shared surprise.

“David called me. I was sure I’d never hear from him again. He called to make sure I was okay. At first, I just held the phone. And then he spoke. He told me his father is ill, and he’s seeing a grief counselor. He told me it helped him feel less out of control.”

Liza held her tongue. She had been telling Janae for three years to talk to someone, but David mentioned it in passing and Janae already had an appointment. Could falling in love really be this transformative? Liza doubted it. She had never met anyone who made her rethink her whole self and probably never would. And despite living with her mother and not having a job that was her true calling, Liza was pretty sure nothing else about her life needed to change. But for Janae, maybe that was what it took.

Liza had thought that Janae and the man-boy’s little spark had faded, but instead, it was glowing. Would Janae tell him about her son? Would she open up and risk her heart to grasp at happiness? Liza hoped she would, even if it came in a chinless, goofy package.

“No one is rushing your grief, Janae,” Liza said.

“I know. The loss will never not crush my heart every single second I’m alive. I just want help with the weight of it,” Janae said. “I . . . I can’t do it on my own.”

“You’ll never have to,” Bev said, then grabbed her for a hug.

Liza’s eyes shot to the nearby wall at the sound of a hard thud, followed by rapid yelling in Spanish. Liza looked at Janae, who sighed.

“Go and get her, Liza, before that man knocks a hole through the wall,” Bev said.

Chicho’s family was at it again. Her mother was a nice enough woman, if a bit mousy, and her father was a brute. Liza and Janae were out the door before they uttered the next Spanish curse word. The hallway was poorly lit, and a few bags of trash sat outside dented doors. She knocked on the Ochoas’ door with authority. That always put the fear of God into Chicho’s father. The door flew open, and Javier leaned on the doorjamb.

“Don’t knock on my door like the law, little girl! I told you about that.” The liquor and marijuana smells wafted outside into the hallway.