Roy pocketed the matches and tapped the back of the boy’s head. “Help me out, here. You too, Matt.”

“Nature calls,” Matt said. He took the paper plate that held one of the votives into the bathroom and closed the door.

The room darkened by half.

Karen reached out and snatched her purse out of her mother’s hand. “That’s personal property.”

“I try with you,” Teresa said. “I try, and I talk to you, and I try some more. But Jesus help me when it comes to your mouth.”

Karen let her mouth hang open.

“Joe,” Roy said. “Frankie. I want you to move both those chairs and that lamp out of the way. We need to make room for these beds.”

Frankie started meandering around in the flickering light, hunched forward, making chimp sounds. In the space he and his brother eventually created, Roy unclasped the beds and, with their hinges screeching, opened them like two enormous hunting traps, folded linens and little pillows tucked in the middle of each mattress like bait. He inched them as far away from each other, and from the nearest bed, as he could, then stood back while Teresa made them up.

“These beds are wet at both ends,” she said.

“They’re fine.”

“Oh my god!” This came from Karen, who had forgotten Matt was in the bathroom or had known full well that he was; either way, she’d opened the door and was stepping back from it now, her hands thrust open at her sides. The door slammed shut.

“What is it?” Teresa asked, stepping toward her.

“Oh my god.” Karen sounded mortified and delighted at the same time. She pistoned her feet and slapped her hands against her thighs. Her voice broke into a singsong laughter. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

“Hey,” Roy said, “can you keep it down, please?”

“What is it?” Teresa asked again.

Karen continued to sing.

“Matt?” Teresa knocked rapidly on the door. “Matt, are you all right?”

“Teresa, just leave him alone,” Roy said.

“I want to find out if he’s okay.” She was turning the knob and pushing against the door, which was giving only an inch or so and was being shoved from the other side.

Joe and Frankie, their voices nearly overlapping, asked what was happening.

“Oh-my-god,” Karen sang, dancing in place, adapting the tune to “Over There.” “Oh-my-god, oh-my-god, oh-my-god.”

“Just leave him alone,” Roy said.

“Matthew, open this door right now.”

“What is it, Dad?”

“What’s going on?”

Suddenly, there was power. The lights sprang on, intensely bright, and the television flashed to life and blared at an insane volume. Karen, still singing, looked as if she were jumping rope.

“That’s it!” Roy shouted. “Every one of you—SHUT UP!”