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began.
    “That’s right,” the woman with the huge hair said, taking over. “Two weeks ago a terrible car accident took the lives of two young West Michigan athletes and tonight we hear there are new developments in the case. We’ll go to Marty outside St. Worth’s Hospital.”
    “Oh, no,” I groaned.
    “Thanks, Jessica,” the grunt said, standing in front of the hospital’s huge sign. “Michigan State Police have released a statement verifying that a person involved with that September nineteenth car accident has been admitted to this hospital for treatment of injuries sustained in that accident. They are not releasing the name at this time or how the person was involved in the accident. It was previously reported that it had involved only one car and both passenger and driver were killed on impact. The State Police are asking anyone with additional information to call and we’ll keep you updated as new information comes in.”
    Dad folded his arm and turned towards me. “You know what this means?” he said.
    He looked angry and for the life of me I didn’t know why. “No?”
    “Because,” he shouted. “We can’t explain this and there’s going to be a ton of people crawling up our asses until we do!”
    “Okay,” I said slowly. “So what?”
    “Look, Bixby,” he snapped. “You may not think it’s a big deal watching your grandma and the house while I’m gone on the road but anybody else would. We’ve talked about this, don’t you listen?”
    I tried not to audibly grind my teeth. “Yes, I just really don’t think anyone trying to figure out what happened to Linc is going to be too interested in whether or not you leave your kids—”
    “You may not think so, but that’s how a guy I know lost his kids. Police did some investigation after one of them was in an accident and next thing he knows he’s lost them both to his ex-wife.”
    My heart stopped at his words. “Well, you don’t have an ex-wife,” I said coldly. “Mom is dead, so I guess you would be stuck with us anyway.”
    His face fell just a little and I almost felt bad.
    “It’ll be okay, Dad,” I said quietly. “Linc’s okay, the police will figure out what happened and everything will be great.”
    All he said was, “Make me some lunch; I’m going to hop in the shower. And don’t answer the phone!”
    I wasn’t halfway through grilling up sandwiches before I had to just unplug it. Apparently everyone was at home and watching the news. Almost all the calls were from Linc’s friends, people who hadn’t deigned to speak to me when he was alive or after we all thought he was dead. Even at his funereal they stood in a big clump right in front of the casket as if they loved him and missed him more than his own family did. I sat in the back with Grandma, cold and silent and ignored by everyone.
    Linc had tried to get his friends to include me, to get one of the guys to take me to a dance or to get one of the bazillion idiot girls vying to be his girlfriend to invite me out. They somehow never got around to asking, but I never mentioned it to Linc and neither did they. Because no matter how great he thought I was, they did not. Linc finally had to settle for an uneasy personal truce. He didn’t try to force me on his friends anymore but they weren’t allowed to say anything disparaging about me. And it was okay. I wasn’t tormented or forced to spend time with people I despised. I just became sort of invisible to everyone but Linc.
    My eyes burned but I didn’t cry. I was happy. Linc was okay. Things could go back to the way they always were. And my cut had stopped bleeding.
    I wound a new bandage around my wrist and pulled my sleeve down, hoping no one would notice. My mind skirted around the black hole of the bracelets and who had put them on me and how Linc had managed to be okay. I couldn’t think about it and be normal for my dad and grandma at the same time.
    She wandered into the kitchen just before him and we