I tell her how much my grandmother in Maine hates my hair, and then I imitate her, saying, “‘I’d rather she were on drugs’—that’s what she says every time she sees me. She takes one look at my hair and goes, ‘I’d rather she were on drugs.’”

Grimshaw asks, “Are they rich?”

“Rich?” I repeat. “I don’t think so. They stay in this old unpainted house every summer, and all their cars are old. No, they’re not rich.”

“Oh,” she says. “When you imitated her, she sounded rich. She sounds like how rich people talk on TV.”

“I don’t know why she talks like that. But it’s not because she’s rich. Everything’s old in that house. Old rugs, old furniture, old dishes. Old books.” I imitate my grandmother again: “‘Don’t walk on that rug with your bare feet!’ ‘Don’t sit in that chair with your wet bathing suit!’”

It makes her laugh. “There,” she says. “The way you just said that. Rich.”

“No,” I insist. “If they were rich, they’d buy new stuff.”

“Right,” she says. “Like these guys. They should buy new stuff.” She makes a gesture that includes the Spragues, the Helmers, the Getmans, and the Purdys. She frowns at Mr. Sprague and affects an upper-class accent that actually sounds somewhat like my grandmother. “Don’t lie there, Mr. Sprague,” she says. “Your filthy bones are messing up our grass!”

I sigh about the shame of it all and shake my head. “I’d rather he were on drugs.”

She lies down on the Helmers and stares up at the sky. “I’d rather I were on drugs,” she sighs. “It’s gonna be a long summer.”

“Last night before I snuck out, Scot got really mad at me and said my father killed himself.”

“Really?” She sits up. “I thought your father died in a car crash.”

“That’s what I always thought. But there’s this unmentionable quality when his name comes up, like he did something so bad we cannot speak his name. Whenever I ask, my mother sighs and gets really sad and says she’ll tell me when I’m older.”

“Do you think he committed a crime?”

“Maybe. That’s always the feeling I get about him.”

“Wow. That’s kind of sexy. I hope it was a good one. My father died when a car fell on his sternum and crushed him. How sexy is that?” She shakes her head, like you can’t even trust a Grimshaw to die right. Then she thinks of something and snaps her fingers. “Hey! Your dad! Maybe he’s alive! Maybe we pass by him all the time and don’t even know it!”

We both think of it at the same time. “Mr. C.!” we say together.

“He’s your dad!” she says, laughing. “That’s why he failed us!”

“Because he cares!”