“Longwood was close, and Dad knew about it from an advertisement they sent out. He checked it out, and that was that.” Melanie returns to an upright position. Her eyes leave Rose’s face after a moment and return to studying the candle flame.

That was that, Rose thinks. She’d been acting oddly, she was found confused in an intersection, did not speak, and was totally creepy.

“Should I go get Uncle Daniel?” Mel asks.

Rose does not want to put her fate in the hands of Uncle Daniel. Rose has been declared, and proved, incapable of taking care of herself. Should she be delivered back into the hands of the authorities, she will lose the fragile autonomy she’s fought so hard to win.

The fact that she was cognitively impaired prior to being put in Longwood doesn’t change the fact that the drugs they’d fed her felled the large cola-loving nurse.

Rose clings to that.

“Grasshopper,” she says wearily, “this isn’t fair to you, I know that, and if it is too hard, don’t do it—I’ll understand—but I’d like some time to get myself together while I can still find the pieces. Could this be our secret, at least for a day or two?”

Melanie thinks for a moment before answering. Rose loves that she considers her words before speaking.

“Would you stay in the playhouse?” Mel asks dubiously.

“Your granddad and I have a house, don’t we?”

“You don’t remember?” Worry tucks down the corners of Melanie’s mouth.

Into Rose’s mind comes a snapshot: Harley, the moving van, and Flynn in front of a white house. “I do,” she says firmly. “It’s white-painted brick with a dogwood in the yard. I just don’t recall the address.”

“I guess I could call Uber and they’d take you to your house.”

Melanie, Rose recalls, has been Ubering on her own since she was eleven.

“Would you do that?” Rose asks.

“Probably we should wait until morning,” Mel says.

“How about the secret part?” Rose asks. “Are you okay with that? The Longwood people, and maybe even the police, will be looking for me as soon as they realize I’m gone. You might have to lie.”

“Oh, I won’t mind lying to the police,” Mel says.

Rose groans. She is such a horrible grandmother.

“I probably won’t have to,” Melanie says kindly. “I just won’t be available. Nobody much cares what a thirteen-year-old thinks anyway. Ageism, hello!”

“Tell me about it.” Rose sighs. “Thank you.”

“You’ll owe me big-time,” Melanie says, and grins impishly.

“You know I love you madly,” Rose tells her.

“Everybody does,” Melanie replies, with a toss of her head any diva would envy.

CHAPTER 8