Robbie knows all of this without actually knowing it. He can feel that there is a deep and deadly chasm in any room both of his parents are in. It is populated by silence and apathy. Later in his life, Robbie will know this was a dark time in his household because he will retain almost no memories of his mother while she was pregnant. He’s old enough to notice it, and he is sensitive, so he feels it. But in his memory, this year will be blank.

For everyone else, it will be unforgettable.

Chapter 26

Robbie and Julia know exactly what their family business consists of but not how it is accomplished. Their families, of course, would like to keep it that way for as long as possible. But as they hurtle toward their sixth birthdays they notice what seems like more closed doors than usual. More late-night whispers in the walls of their homes, as their fathers shuffle quietly back and forth, planning. Plotting.

Curiosity grows in Robbie and Julia, beanstalks of it sprouting in their stomachs and pushing up and out of their mouths. Where are you going, Papa? Julia asks Saul as he leaves on a Thursday night. The Empire State Building, Saul responds. He is distracted. Julia loves the Empire State Building. You’re not, she says. What are you doing? Saul adjusts the collar of his shirt in the hallway mirror. It’s too late for you to be up, Jules, he says. Should I ask Nonna to come read you a story? And then, I love you. And then Saul is gone, and in the click of the front door shutting Julia finds she is hungry, and frightened. Information might have fed her.

Julia cannot sleep that night. She twists and turns so she sweats damp spots into every inch of her bedsheets.

Robbie, gifted with slightly more stealth than Julia, creeps along the middle rooms of his apartment. His papa came home from work and shut the bedroom door and his mamma is in there now, too, the low hum of her voice against the sharp crackle of his. Stuck here, Robbie hears. Half-assed . . . legacy. And then nothing, and then, Minchia! which if Robbie said, his mamma would chase him around the apartment with a bar of Ivory soap to wash his mouth. And then his mamma’s syrup, the tone she uses to calm Robbie down too. And then footsteps. Robbie flees to the kitchen table and has to pretend he has been practicing writing the alphabet the whole time. His mamma comes into the kitchen, where she braces a hand against her back and holds herself up against the counter with the other. She breathes, shhhh, a loud soothing sigh. The bigger she gets, the more inaccessible she seems to him.