Gram was lying to me. Only, I didn’t know why. What was she hiding? Sometimes it seemed like we weren’t even related to each other-she was so frail, as though her body was just waiting to die, and I had never been sick a day in my life. But she also knew me better, in some ways, than I knew myself. I hated that. I couldn’t help thinking of the conversation earlier, the way she’d asked all those questions about Milla, as though she had some secret knowledge about what had happened. One thing was sure, though: nothing would make Gram tell me anything she wanted to keep secret.

It was pointless to keep talking to her. I tried to walk away, but Gram stopped me.

“What’s your hurry, Hailey?” she said. She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray I’d already emptied twice that day, and held out her arms. “We got callers. Here, git me up.”

Only then did I hear the sound of a car in the yard. I did as she asked, seizing her hands and pulling harder than necessary, so Gram stumbled as she stood. I let her lean on me as she cracked her knuckles and worked her neck one way and the other.

When I was sure she wouldn’t fall, I took Chub to get ready for bed. Ordinarily I’d bathe him, but Gram’s callers were likely to start drinking beer and need the toilet before long.

I brushed Chub’s teeth with a soft-bristled brush and the strawberry-flavored kids’ toothpaste I’d splurged on. I wiped him down with a clean cloth and changed his pull-up. He was four, way too old to still be in diapers; I’d tried everything I could think of to get him to use the toilet, but nothing worked.

As I wiped down the sink, he wrapped his arms around my thighs and said, “Loo, Hayee.” He said this from time to time, and I was convinced it was “I love you, Hailey,” even if I didn’t have any way to prove it. I knelt down on the floor and hugged him, breathing his sweet baby scent. “Me and you,” I whispered. “Always.”

In two more years I’d be eighteen. I’d graduate from high school and the social services people would stop coming around checking on me. And if we were lucky, we’d go so far away that they’d never be able to find Chub.