“Okay.” Joey’s heart settled back into its cavity. She was relieved this was about Facebook messages. That this wasn’t a heart attack or cancer or something equally unfixable. “What’s your password?”

“My password? Benjamin. My password is always Benjamin.”

Benjamin. Her grandmother’s little brother. Joey had almost never heard G speak of him.

“Okay, I’ll be back after I read them.” Joey walked to the door.

“Joey?” said her grandmother. “Can you please turn off the light?”

*  *  *

For a long time after she finished reading G’s Facebook messages, Joey sat very still in her grandmother’s swivel desk chair. Every time the chair shifted, it jerked Joey to another terrible thought.

Finally, she called her mother. Bea said hello. She didn’t launch into a game of Fifty Questions: Wedding Edition. Just hello.

Joey told her she had to read some Facebook messages of G’s. Her mother said okay. Joey said, Once you finish, can you meet me at G’s? Another okay.

Joey ended the call. She read the last message again. Then the last one her grandmother wrote. By the time she finished, her cheeks were smothered in tears.

*  *  *

It was some time before Joey got up the nerve to venture back into her grandmother’s bedroom.

“So, you read?” The room still hung in darkness. Joey went for the light switch. G said sharply, “No.”

Joey climbed onto the bed so she was flush against the headboard beside her grandmother. “I don’t know what to say.” She listened to the hum of the humidifier. “I didn’t know any of that. I’m so, so sorry, G.”

“He’s dead. I can’t believe it. He’s dead. He tried to save my family, and I didn’t even know it. And now he’s dead, just like the rest of them.”

“I know,” Joey said, more tears spilling out her eyes. Why was she crying and her grandmother perfectly still? It was beginning to frighten her, her grandmother with her back so erect.

They sat side by side for what seemed like hours. Joey stared at the blue light on the TV monitor. She began to shiver. She was still wearing her dress from the ocean with Lily. It was maybe even still damp.

“G, can I ask you something? Or do you not want to talk about it?”

“You can ask me,” said this new, eerie G voice.

“Well…how did you survive it? How did you survive the deaths of your whole family? And then losing Milos?”

There was a choking sound. A rustling on the bed. The shadow of her grandmother lifted a throw pillow from behind her back and clutched it to her chest.