“Who would you marry?”

Evy smiled. “You won’t be mad?”

“Mad?” Annie realized who Evy was talking about. “Oh, no, I’d love you to marry him.”

“Your brother is such a dreamboat. So what about you?”

“If it was anyone apart from Lew…Raj.”

Evy let out a shriek and made a grimace, squirming her body as if something disgusting were clinging to it. “God, could you imagine what your parents would do? Seriously, though, Annie, who?”

The door opened and Mrs. Burger walked in. “Annie, honey, Greta’s going to take you back. Your mom just called. Your dad’s truck has blown a piston or something, and she doesn’t know where Frank is.”

Annie jumped up off the bed.

“She told you not to worry, honey. She’s sure Frank just forgot.”

When Annie got home, her mom and dad were in the hallway, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“Where’s Frankie?”

Her mom was holding one hand over her mouth; with the other she pointed upward.

“Why didn’t he—?”

“Some drinks he have,” she said, without removing her hand.

Her dad looked frightened and confused. Annie saw now that a couple of the banisters were broken and realized that her parents were afraid to go upstairs.

“Is Frankie all right?”

“He has lots of drinks.” With her free hand, her mom drew together the collar of her robe, clutching it tightly at her neck. “We try to help him up but…he’s not himself.”

“He pushed your mama,” her dad whispered.

“He didn’t mean to.”

“In the face. What you say he didn’t mean? In the face!” Her dad demonstrated, shoving out the palm of his own hand. In that same motion, he pulled her mom’s hand away from her mouth to reveal a slightly swollen cut on her lip. Then he pointed at the broken banisters. “Look. He kicked them in. Kicked them.” He made kicking motions. “È pazzo.”

Annie climbed the stairs. At the top, she glanced back down. Her mom and dad were staring up at her helplessly. He wasn’t in his own room, so she went to hers, where she found him. He had opened the cedar chest under her window and was sitting on the floor surrounded by all her old things: her farmyard set; her two favorite books, The King of the Golden River and Hans Brinker: or, The Silver Skates; and, in his lap, the chewed-up patchwork quilt that had been her safety blanket.

“Frankie. What are you doing?”

Glancing back at her, he tried to get up and almost fell. His face looked as if it were about to slide right off his head, all the muscles deadened and drooping, his eyes bloodshot.

She went to him, holding him steady. “I’m going to take you to bed, Frankie.” Speaking into his face as if it were the entrance of a deep well into which her brother had fallen, Annie felt as if her heart had dissolved and surfaced in her skin, setting up a faint enveloping throb.