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Yours?”
    “Good, I just told you.”
    “What classes did you have today?”
    “Uh … math and biology.” There was something about her voice that should have warned me.
    “What did you learn today?”
    “Lots of things. Why?”
    “Because the school secretary called to tell me that you didn’t show up.”
    She dried her hands on the dishcloth and looked at me with an I-know-everything-so-don’t-try-to-lie-to-me expression that would freeze a rhino in its tracks. “Where were you, Francis?”
    I don’t know if I was ashamed or afraid or angry or embarrassed. I just knew I didn’t want to tell her.
    “Where were you? Don’t make me ask you again!”
    “I was at the cemetery. Happy now?”
    “What were you doing there?”
    I stared at the gray swirls in the linoleum tiles on the floor. “I was visiting Papa.”
    She didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. She just looked at me with a fed up expression as if I were six years old eating ice cream and getting more on the floor than into my mouth.
Sorry I’m a mess, Maman.
    “Next Monday, instead of going to the cemetery, you’re going to the psychologist at school. I made an appointment for you.”
    “I don’t need a psychologist. I’m not a freak.”
    “You’ll go anyway!
Point final.
”
    I stormed up to my room and banged the door behind me. I grabbed my guitar and sat on my bed hammering at the strings, but I couldn’t block out the sound of Luc crying in the living room. He was probably scared that what was left of his family was cracking some more.

5 | P LAYING G AMES
    T he next morning, I slept in. When I came down to breakfast the house was empty. Sputnik’s leash was missing from its hook so I knew that Maman and Luc had taken him for a walk. There was a small wooden chest on the table. I read the note folded on top of it:
    Francis, this was Papa’s. Take care of it.
    I held it for a moment before I opened its metal clasp. Inside was a battered pipe I’d never seen Papa smoke, a couple of old snapshots of him as a young man standing on the pier, and a deck of playing cards that was at least as old as the pictures. When I shook the cards out of their box, a folded piece of paper fell to the floor. I smoothed it out:
    August 14, 1953. We, the Loyal Order of the Companions of Poker, pledge to meet on August 14, 1993 at 9 p.m. for a rematch at The Sailor, 142 Chester Street, Toronto. Password: Blackjack.
    In 1953, my father would have been just twenty years old, but his handwriting hadn’t changed. I’d never heard him talk about the Loyal Order of the Companions of Poker or any reunion. In fact, the only time I remember him talking about Toronto was when he was on a rant about the Maple Leafs. I refolded the paper and put it back between the cards. I carried the box upstairs and stowed it with the Rangers jersey in my bottom drawer. Despite these little glitches: the note in the box was obviously written in fun, it was almost forty years old, and it referred to something that everybody involved had probably forgotten–
if
they were still alive, I felt like I had won the lottery. I know it sounds crazy, but I thought that if I could just get to the reunion, I’d meet up with my father. I can’t explain it. It’s not like I was delusional. I knew what was real and what wasn’t. I just didn’t want to accept it, that’s all.

6 | I NVENTION
    W hen I came home from school one rainy spring afternoon, the back door was unlocked, so I knew Maman was home from work. She was sitting on the living room floor with photographs scattered around her.
    “I miss him so much.” She hugged herself and rocked as she sobbed. “I had an urge to look at our wedding pictures. We were so happy in them.” Finally she wiped her eyes with the shreds of Kleenex in her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how late it is. It’s time to make dinner.”
    I longed to talk about Papa with her, but it was as if all my feelings were locked in a safe and