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turn to leave but look at her over my shoulder. “I can go with you if you want.” Her face is blank. I don’t know why I suggested such a thing, but I’m still blabbing away. “I can help you clean out your mom’s place.”
    “I’m not going to.”
    “I know. But … one day you might really regret that … letting a stranger go through her stuff.” She opens her mouth and I plow ahead. “There may be something there that you didn’t know about or had forgotten about or something you want to give to somebody.” She is shaking her head, and the air is sitting on my cheeks, hurting them. “You can let me know. The kids start school on Monday and I can go then, or my mom can watch them if you want to go tomorrow.”
    “I don’t want to go.”
    “All right,” I say, stepping off the porch, relieved she doesn’t want to do it. “If you change your mind, you know where I am.”
    I shiver going through the door and plop down on the sofa. “Where’d you go?” Mom asks, shuffling the cards.
    “Tried to deliver some Christmas cheer.”
    “And how’d that go?”
    “People make it hard,” I say, picking up the cards Mom is dealing for Go Fish.
    “Well, you know, I’ve always been a very good judge of people,” Mom says, organizing the cards in her hand. “That’s why I like so very few of them.”
    I laugh out loud and look at the kids. “She doesn’t mean that.”
    “I wasn’t even listening,” Emma says.
    Mom rears her head back and cackles. I organize my cards and realize I’ve been dealt a bum hand. That’s how it goes sometimes.

 
     
    Five
     
Grief can’t be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way.
    — A NNE M ORROW L INDBERGH
     
    MELISSA
     
    I never went to bed but stayed on the couch watching mindless television. I wondered if Ramona died in her bed or while watching TV on the sofa, or was she about to leave her apartment when death came for her? I wondered if it was snowing out when she died and if she was standing at the window watching it fall? I wondered, too, if the man who was my father would even remember her or care that she was dead? He wouldn’t, I say aloud to no one. I don’t care, so why would he? I ate some of the chicken and dumplings at one in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had something that good. When I was seven or eight, Ramona and I lived next to the Schweigers, a family whose apartment always smelled like a bakery. Mrs. Schweiger was Hungarian or something; I don’t remember, but I loved her accent. She invited me over a lot for dinner, and years later I wondered if she suspected that I didn’t eat much at my place. “Would your mother like to come, too?” she’d say, looking over my head for anyone who might be supervising me.
    “She’s not here,” I said every time. Most of the time it was true, but sometimes Ramona would be inside the apartment, passed out on the sofa or sleeping with the man of the hour. The Schweigers ate every meal together: bacon and eggs, pancakes, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, baked chicken, scalloped potatoes, or spaghetti with meatballs, and there was always dessert. Karla was fifteen when I met them, Madden was twelve, and Louie was eight. I played with Louie every day. Sometimes I fell asleep on their couch and Mrs. Schweiger would leave me there. She’d knock on Ramona’s door, and if Ramona wasn’t there she’d leave a note on the door, letting her know I was with them.
    The Schweigers took me to church every Sunday. I remember the first time Mrs. Schweiger asked if I wanted to go with them. I shrugged and said sure. I’d never been inside a church before, but if it meant being with the Schweigers, I was all for it. There was nothing complicated about the Schweigers’ faith; it was dirt plain and natural. When I remember Mrs. Schweiger I realize she never talked about religion. She talked about God and Jesus like they were part of the family. I spent three