He doesn’t come in. Maybe he’s also afraid of the ghosts.

“You okay, Q?”

Grown-ups love to ask that question. I’m starting to think they ask it more because they aren’t okay themselves, but they don’t know how to tell you that, so they want you to say it for them.

“Sure,” I say. I scratch the space between Cupcake’s ears.

“I’m home from work early.”

That’s another thing grown-ups, especially my dad, do a lot. State the obvious.

He scratches the back of his head. “Want to kick the ball around?”

He’s still dressed in his work clothes. Slacks, button-down shirt, and a tie. We haven’t kicked the ball around since last November.

“Um,” I say. My brain is doing a major Freeze-Up.

“I mean,” he says, raising up his hands, “it’s fine if you don’t want to. I just thought it might be fun.”

I swallow multiple times. “Okay,” I manage.

He gives me a tight smile. “Meet you downstairs in five?”

The air outside is chilly. I wear my old soccer sweatshirt. It’s not nearly as cool as the one I would’ve gotten if I was actually on the seventh-grade team, but I’ve kept it because it reminds me that, once upon a time, I did actually belong to a team. Even if it was a rec league one.

Dad has already gotten the ball out of the garage. He’s standing awkwardly in our backyard that’s filled with overgrown weedy grass. Dad used to mow the lawn every weekend, but he hasn’t seemed to care about that in a while. He kicks the ball to me, and I trap it between my feet with ease.

I smile a little. I’ve still got it. I kick the ball back to Dad. We pass it back and forth for a while in silence.

“So how was school?” Dad says.

I kick the ball with a little more oomph. “We had a drill.”

Dad doesn’t manage to trap it. He runs to catch up with it. “A drill?”

“For lockdown.”

Dad’s eyes widen. “Oh.”

I want to ask him so many things. Does he regret having bought those guns? Does he regret that he never talked to us about them? Does he still think it’s okay for grown-ups to have guns? Does he think what happened was his fault?

But more than that, I want him to ask me questions. The questions he never asks. The questions that are more than just the simple “Are you okay?”

“You’re a good girl, Quinn,” Dad says, but he’s not even looking at me. His shoulders are hunched. He’s changed out of his work clothes, but he’s still wearing his big shiny watch.

I should say something. I should ask him all my questions. I should make him ask me his. But I know I can’t, so I kick the ball again and say, “Thanks, Dad.”

Fifteen

Cora

I can’t sleep. I try all my tricks. I recite the periodic table. I whisper the last line of The One and Only Ivan over and over again: “Mighty Silverback.” I roll to my left side and then to my right.