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are. Don’t think you know what I’m going through or that you can make it better.”
    “You’re young, Jeanine,” he’d say. “Trust me.”
    “I’m all through trusting,” she’d say. “He left. He didn’t want me.”
    “Where are you going to get, feeling sorry for yourself?”
    “Where did you ever get, Dad? Think about it. Where did you ever go?”
    She’d stomp upstairs, her little body making hippo sounds, her crying avalanching down from the top of the stairs, from her room. She’d leave Granddad with me, and it was like a scene in a show that you could count on happening until Granddad just plain stopped coming by. He made like he lived a million miles away, even though he’s been walking distance since forever.
    The next day, when I came home from Granddad’s, I was betting on the house’s being empty, betting that Mom would be somewhere with Mr. Paul, holding on to her new idea of happiness. I put my key into the lock, but the lock was already popped. I pushed wide the door, and the lights were on. I heard low talk, and guessing now what I was about to find, I followed its sound. I found them together in the kitchen—he stirring something with a spoon in a pot on theburner, she standing beside him with her chin on the ledge of his shoulder. Mr. Paul was not a big man, and he wasn’t handsome either. He had overalls on over a navy-blue T-shirt, sandals on his feet. On the parts of his head where hair still grew he had buzzed it short.
    “Have a good day?” I asked, louder than necessary, so I could freak out my mom, who had not heard me come in.
    “Rosie,” she said when she turned. “Well. Hello, Rosie. Mr. Paul is making pasta.” She scuttled away from him as if she were stacked on crab legs and touched a finger to an itch beneath her chin.
    “Uh-huh.” I folded my arms across my chest and stood there solid, looking straight into her eyes, which were, I suddenly noticed, a lot like Granddad’s. She combed one hand through her long black hair and stared back at me, practically pleading.
    “You hungry, Rosie?”
    “Nope.”
    “You want to sit with us?”
    She didn’t mean it, and I didn’t budge: “I’m busy.”
    “Did you say hello to Mr. Paul?” Mom asked, because now he had turned too, was stirring the pot behind his back, as if pasta couldn’t be left for just one minute.
    “How’s the window-washing business?” I asked very fake politely.
    “It’s our busy season,” he said.
    “I bet.”
    “Couldn’t keep up with all the demand without your mother.”
    “Yeah. She’s something.”
    “Really, Rosie. There’s plenty of pasta. If you want to join us.”
    “Ate already.”
    “Well, that’s good, I guess.”
    “It was more than good. It was delicious.”
    My mother gave me a look that said “Please please please don’t mortify me, Rosie,” begged me with her eyes. But themean part of me was already loose, and I was fighting a little urge to ask Mr. Paul about his wife. “Is she waiting on you for supper?” I wanted to say. “Is she thinking she’s forgotten? Does she even have any idea that you’ve stopped loving her?” I had a million ways that I could ask it, but I held my tongue. I took my time walking over to the pantry and pulling myself out a box of saltines and a jar of peanut butter. “For later,” I said, and I turned on my heels and took the stairs, two by two, up to my room. I slammed the door behind me, as loud as a door can be slammed. I sat down on one corner of my bed. I inhaled and exhaled, inhaled and exhaled so my heart would stop beating so fast. I didn’t know at whom I was maddest—my dad for leaving, my mom for needing, or Mr. Paul for taking advantage. I didn’t know for whom I felt sorriest: Mrs. Paul or me or my mother, all being messed with by a loser.
    I unscrewed the lid on the peanut butterjar and dug the shovel of a saltine in, dug in another and then another, letting the crumbs snow all over my bed. I tried not to