“I know what that means,” she says. “I’m not a little kid.”

“You sort of are. How old are you? Ten? Eleven?”

“Twelve. How short are you? Four foot two? Three?”

“I’m five seven!”

“Something to be proud of,” she assures me, though I think she’s actually mocking me. “So we’ve established you are scared of bugs, have a fence fetish, and have dated outside of societal norms. Anything else I should know?”

“Do you always talk like this?” I ask.

“What? Like I know what I’m talking about?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

She grins. “I like you.” Then she frowns. “Wait. You’re not like a kidnapper or a rapist, are you? I have to warn you, I have a black belt.”

“I’m not a kidnapper or a rapist,” I say. “What do you have a black belt in?”

“Nothing,” she says. “But I own a black belt. Didn’t it sound intimidating?”

“Not really,” I say. “I’m not scared of a little girl.”

“But you’re scared of bugs. They’re a lot smaller than I am.”

“I am not!”

“Boys,” she says, rolling her eyes. “All bluster and noise.”

“Tell me about it,” I mutter.

She claps her hands against her chest. “You would know about it, wouldn’t you? Because you’re gay.”

“I suppose.” This conversation needs to be over so I can skulk in front of the house some more. Or leave and never look back. That sounds good too.

“Well, that’s fascinating. So, which one are you?”

“Which one what?”

The little girl looks over at the house. “I hear her talking sometimes. She can get loud when she wants to. Once, she was yelling into the phone and I heard a lot. That was before Frank left.”

A buzzing noise picks up in my ears at the name Frank.

“I don’t know who she was talking to, but she was yelling about them. Sometimes, she gets drunk and tells me stories. It doesn’t happen much anymore. The stories. And her getting drunk. I think she’s actually trying this time. Who knows whether or not she’ll make it. Jury is still out on that one.”

“Who are you?” I ask her, though in my secret heart I already know.

“You’re too young to be Bear,” she tells me. “Such a funny name, that. She told me you gave it to him.”

“When I was just a little guy,” I whisper.

She nods sadly. “Then you must be Tyson. Well, Tyson, I don’t know why you’re here, but it might be better if you left. Things might have changed, but it’s nowhere near where it should be. She’s never going to be what you need.” She says this with such a familiar air of forced adulthood that I’m taken aback. She’s essentially me.

“Izzie?” I ask her, dazed.

And she smiles, and gone is the cynical edge, the sarcastic lilt. Bear smiles the same way. So do I. As does our mother. It’s uncanny.

Isabelle McKenna, my little sister, says, “I used to wonder if you’d ever come for me. Now I just wonder why you came at all.”