“Is almost two in the morning,” her mom said. “Sal, you go down there and this girl you tell her she has to go. Tell him he can’t be taking people back here.”

Her dad just stared fearfully at the door. Annie could hear Frank shushing the girl, who couldn’t stop laughing. Then the sliding hinges of the liquor cabinet. A belated dish hit the kitchen floor and the girl began to laugh again.

“Go tell him,” her mom hissed, poking her finger into Sal’s back. He swatted her hand away, not taking his eyes off the door.

Annie couldn’t stand it any longer. She jumped off the bed, left the room, and went downstairs. Frank sat in his dad’s armchair with Mary Vanburg—now Mary Haliday—in his lap. He still had scars on his face from where they had operated to reconstruct his cheek and nose.

“You guys have got to leave,” she said. “Mom and Dad are awake.”

“He’s over twenty-one,” Mary said.

Annie felt a rush of hatred: ugly girl, ugly clean through. “Does Cal know you’re here?” She had married Cal just three months ago. He was in the navy now.

“Like he’s going without,” she said.

“Annie, we’re just having a drink,” Frank put in.

“You’ve drunk enough. That’s Dad’s liquor. You put that back.”

“We’ll stay down here,” he said. “We’ll be quiet. Haven’t got nowhere to go. Mary’s mom stays up all night.”

Annie ran up to her room, pulled the biscuit tin from under her bed, and took out a ten from the little pile of bills she had saved over many years.

She returned to them and put the money on the table. “You can get a room somewhere now.”

“A room!” Mary put on a show of outrage. “What do you think I am?”

Frank was just staring at Annie.

“Frank, you get out of this house,” she said. “You get out of here and don’t you ever come back.”

She couldn’t stand to look at him anymore and ran up to her room. She sat on her bed, her heart beating like crazy. If they didn’t leave the house she didn’t know what she was going to do. She felt as if she would attack them. But then she heard his truck start up. All at once she felt utterly bereft. She wanted her brother. Wanted to talk to him. She ran downstairs and out into the yard, but the truck had already turned onto Main. When she came back into the house, she saw that the money she had put on the table was gone.

Lew set an apple beside the eggs on his dad’s plate. There wasn’t anything else to eat. The bread he had tried to bake hadn’t turned out well in the old stove. His dad examined the apple suspiciously.

“Windfalls,” Lew explained. “From Ruth’s place. She said I could have them. They’ll just go to waste, Pop.”