Joey’s fascination with evil eyes began when she was ten. Her first summer on Corfu. Her father took her to the narrow alleys of the old Jewish quarter where her grandparents grew up. He led her past a bunch of scorched buildings—partially demolished with black smoke burrowed into weathered white and yellow stucco. Then a square with refurbished buildings in rose and peach. A taverna on every corner. He wanted to show her the synagogue on Velissariou.

“This is your history, Joey,” he said. “These are your people.”

“I’ll wait outside,” she said.

Her grandparents didn’t really talk about Corfu. But when Joey was nine, she was allowed to sleep over at her grandparents’ Delray Beach condo. The sleepover was a special occasion. Before it, her mother had forbade her to sleep away from home. This was because Joey’s grandfather, who grew up on Corfu, once knew a girl who slept over at a friend’s house. There was a fire in the house, and when the family escaped the house, they forgot the guest.

Joey always said to her mother, “That doesn’t make sense,” and her mother said, “Maybe the friend slept in the guest room,” and Joey said, “Didn’t Grandfather live in a one-room apartment before the war?” because so was his storied youth, and her mother just said, in uncharacteristic strictness, “I am in charge,” and Joey said, “I’ll sleep in my friend’s room so they can’t forget me.” But Joey’s attempts to convince her mother never succeeded until her father finally said, “Bea, this no-sleepover thing is ridiculous. At least let her go to your parents.”

Her mother obviously trusted Grandmama and Grandfather enough that, if there was a fire, they would not forget to grab Joey—especially Grandfather, Joey supposed, whose story had so spooked her mother. So this was how Joey landed at a sleepover replacement.

The next morning, she was in their bathroom, looking for tissues. She found an empty tissue box under the bathroom sink. Inside was a picture of suitcases.

Joey went to the kitchen where her grandmother was stirring a pot on the stove. “What is this, Grandmama?”

Her grandmother turned and went very still in her yellow house robe. She said, “I don’t like talking about some things, Joey.”

“Okay.” Joey put the picture back in the box and sat at the table with its window onto the front yard, where a neighbor boy was mowing the lawn.

Her grandmother came over to the table and removed the picture from the box. She clasped it by the edges. “Joey, do you know Grandfather’s numbers on his arm?”