She was still round; that was the weird thing. I thought she’d be like a deflated balloon, but she still had the big bump where Drumlin had been.

Pop was the first to move.

He took his cane and limped right up to Anika, so much taller than her that he had to bend a little to plant a quick kiss on her forehead. “All right, love?” he said, and she reached up to lay her hand flat on his chest for a second, then nodded and stepped away from him.

“I think I’m going to go lie down,” she said, and then she turned to head to their bedroom.

Luca reached a hand out to help her, but she waved him away.

It was mostly Sam, Pop, and me in the days and week afterward—doing our homework, eating dinner together, and then most evenings watching TV. Anika stayed in her room that first week she came home, and Luca went back to work, and Sam and I went back to school.

It felt like we were living in a house with ghosts—hearing Anika moving around in her room but hardly ever coming out. The sounds of Luca leaving late at night for the graveyard shift and coming home too early in the morning. The two of them in their room whispering; and then sometimes the sound of Anika crying.

“This can’t go on,” Pop said one evening, when he didn’t know I was listening. “The two of you need to speak to someone—privately and together. For the sake of Sam and Fred, you can’t stay this way.”

I was in my room, where I’d been reading under the covers with Luca’s flashlight. I hadn’t been able to sleep lately. I’d listen to the sounds of Luca leaving for work in the middle of the night and toss and turn until I heard his car cutting out and the door slamming, keys jingling in the lock and then his heavy footsteps coming into the house. Once I knew he was back it was like I could breathe properly again.

But that night I’d also heard the back door slide open, Pop’s voice whispering, and Luca’s footsteps stopping. Then I’d snuck out of bed and opened my door a crack, had seen them both in the kitchen—Pop leaning against the counter and Luca sitting on one of the breakfast stools, with his head in his hands.

“Believe me, if anyone knows what you’re going through . . .” Pop started to say.

“No offense, Jeff—but you have no idea what it’s like to keep losing family before you can even get started.”