I hang up without responding. The only thing she and Moony shared were their superstitions.

I glance over my shoulder toward the open door to her bedroom. I imagine a draft emanating from it. My arms go prickly. I decide Eric and Damien’s is a good choice after all. I rush to the kitchen and grab the box of cereal to take with me, pulling some dirty shorts out of the hamper in the garage before starting for the front door.

I am nearly out of the house, one hand on the knob, when the latch inside me breaks. My grandmother is dead, and my mother is coming to get me. The flood of feeling that my brain was so focused on holding back rushes into every cell like blood after your leg has gone numb. The pain is incomprehensible, and the sound of my sorrow penetrates my consciousness like a thousand angry spears.

I sink to the floor, my back against the door, and pull my knees inside the SeaWorld T-shirt as I sob. I would like to believe that every tear was for Moony, for her tight laugh and clockwork schedule. For the biscuits she would make on Saturday mornings and the cans of hairspray she used to set her hair just so. For the countless nights playing Uno at the breakfast table and the smell of Murphy’s Oil Soap as it would fill the living room every Friday morning after mass—the very same they used in the parish hall. But I know it was hearing my mother’s voice that weakened the hinges of my resolve, and even if this teary-eyed unwinding is considered a “normal” reaction to grief, I hate the feeling of my control puddling on the floor with my emotions—and I hate her all the more for being the one to release it.

II.

SMALL TOWNS ARE ALL THE SAME. BY THE TIME I’VE made it to the last bite of cereal in the bowl, Eric has already managed to set off a cascade of texts and phone calls that mean nearly two-thirds of our town knows that Moony is lying stiff and untouched in her bedroom next door.

I settle into one corner of the couch and pretend to watch some high school drama, but Deena whines at me continuously, and I can’t make my brain stick to anything for more than a few seconds. It took me a good half hour to peel myself from the polished wood floor in our entry and make my way across the lawn. I haven’t cried again, but the purge of emotion has left me feeling hollowed out, like one of those gourd birdhouses they sell at the Charity Guild craft fair.

And my heart beats like the second hand of Moony’s vintage watch. Tick…tick…tick…

Counting down the moments until my mother arrives.

It is the wolf I notice first.