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with a pink collar, and when it sees me and my mother it starts barking, its teeth sharp and yellowy white. My mother puts both hands on my shoulders, and pulls me behind her.
    The boy has to hold the pink leash with both hands. “No, Rita! No! Stop barking!”
    Daniel takes the leash, dragging the dog away. He uses his foot to push the dog behind a door, shutting it quickly. “Guess Rita doesn’t know you’re family,” he says, leaning against the door. He smiles, and again there is the metal retainer. But Rita is still barking, throwing her weight against the door, so it sounds like someone kicking. “Dad’s new dog,” he says.
    My mother looks at the door. “Where’s Marilyn?”
    “He had to put her down. Hip problems.”
    “Oh.” She looks at the other boy. “Well, God, I guess you’re Joe.”
    The other boy nods, says hi, and my mother laughs. And then they all four just stand there, staring at us like we have just come down from Mars, like we have green heads and noses where our eyes should be. Rita is still barking, growling, trying to sniff us through the small opening under the door. The water that Daniel gave me smells and tastes like soap.
    My mother clears her throat, her hand on the back of her neck. “This is a little strange, isn’t it? I know it feels strange for me.”
    Only Daniel smiles back. She turns to him, lowering her voice. “Is he here?”
    “No, he’s still at work,” Daniel says. “Man, this is going to be in -tense, isn’t it?”
    I hear Eileen’s voice from a different room. “Is that them? Are they here?” She walks into the entryway, carrying a wooden spoon with mashed potatoes on the end of it. When she sees me, she looks down at the dress and makes a squealing sound, leaning down to give me a tight hug. “Did you all meet Evelyn? Isn’t she just beautiful?”
    All four of them look at me carefully, but say nothing.
    “Well, she is, stupids,” she says, kissing the top of my head. She hands the spoon to Daniel and tells him to go in the kitchen and make sure the potatoes stay warm but don’t burn. She tells Beth and Stephanie to set the table.
    “You two come with me,” she says, and leads us into another room. It’s not a kitchen, and there isn’t a TV in it, so I’m not sure what it’s for. A piano sits in one corner, a gold sofa and two matching chairs in another. Someone has spilled something on the baby blue carpet that stained, something brown or dark green in the shape of a boot. I sit next to my mother on the gold sofa, little pillows on each side of us. Eileen sits in one of the chairs.
    “I’m just so glad you two are here,” she says. “So glad.” She claps her hands and bounces a little, like she is riding in a car on a bumpy road.
    My mother smiles with her lips together. She looks around the room, at the oil painting of the ocean crashing onto rocks above the piano, the gauzy gold curtains in the windows. She picks up one of the pillows, fingering its baby blue fringe.
    “This room is exactly the same,” she says. “Time warp.”
    “Some things are different.”
    “Let’s hope so.”
    Eileen reaches over to my mother’s face, smoothing down her hair. “Just be nice, Tina. Just be nice and everything will be okay.”
    “I’ll be nice if he’ll be nice.”
    Eileen frowns and looks away.

    My grandfather is a very big man, broad shouldered and so tall that he has to duck when he first comes through the door. My eyes go right to where his pinkie should be, and it’s true: there’s just a little white stub there, the end smoothed over with pink, dimpled flesh. He sees me looking and wiggles it at me before he even says hello.
    “Hi,” I say, still looking at the stub.
    “Hi yourself.”
    He looks much older than Eileen; a flap of skin hangs between his chin and his neck, and one of his eyes has a red vein zigzagging across the white part. His hair is dark red, cut short like a soldier’s, and he’s wearing a white shirt with a