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name him. Bobo, for silly or foolish, like a clown. Jake had been studying Spanish in school the year Poppy surprised the boys with the border collie puppy on Christmas Eve. Every boy oughta have a dog once in his life, Poppy had said. Good dog’ll get a boy through a tough spot quicker than all this therapy they do on TV nowadays. He had looked at Jake when he said it. Perhaps he knew that, as a teenager, Jake was beginning to struggle with the facts of his adoption.
    Poppy had prevailed in the argument about the dog, even though Rob had protested that we didn’t have time for a pet. There was never any saying no to Uncle Poppy, and for the most part Rob knew better than to try. If we said something Poppy didn’t agree with, he pretended his hearing aid batteries were dead. On Christmas Day, Rob scoured available stores for batteries and bought Poppy an entire box, wrapped up as a joke. Rob laughed and said he wanted the hearing aid fixed before Poppy showed up with a pony. By then, Bobo was a fixture in Jake’s lap, and we all knew the puppy wasn’t going anywhere. The puppy grew into a dog that ate everything from pool floats to extension cords, but it didn’t matter because Jake loved him so.
    Now Bobo was a sad reminder of Jake’s absence. Outside the window, he picked up his Frisbee, dropped it off the steps, and watched it clatter to a stop, as if he were trying to figure out why it wouldn’t fly anymore.
    After turning down the TV, I stretched out on the sofa, so that I’d hear Christopher and Rob if they came in. When I woke up, the garage door was grinding downward. Christopher passed by in the hall, his backpack slung over one shoulder.
    “Hey,” I said, my voice scratchy.
    Christopher froze midstride, his body stiff and reluctant. Lately, if he could get away with it, he went straight to his room and shut the door. These days we were all in some way toxic to each other, without meaning to be. The sadness in each of us was so palpable that there was no way to be together without seeing it, sensing it, tasting its bitterness.
    “Hey.” Christopher gave a weary little smile that conveyed no bit of the gregarious high school junior who, not so long ago, had been telling knock-knock jokes and doing stand-up comedy in our living room.
    “Did Dad come in?” I asked, mostly for Chris’s benefit. I knew Rob would probably crash at the hospital, then get up, wash and change in his office, and go back to work. He seldom came home two nights in a row anymore. It was easier for him to remain at the hospital, entrenched in problems that could be managed. There was no managing Poppy’s death and Jake’s disappearance, no easy recovery plan that could be written out and carefully followed. There was only a nebulous grief that moved through the house like fog.
    “Uh-uh.” Christopher shook his head, wisps of blond hair falling over his eyes. “Want me to turn on the alarm before I go up?” His lanky body twisted as he looked over his shoulder toward the coat closet. Six months ago, it would never have occurred to him to wonder whether the alarm was on or off, because he knew his dad or Jake would handle it.
    “In a minute,” I said, standing up and crossing the room to the doorway. His hazel eyes flicked away, as if he wanted to be somewhere else. “Did you have a good study night?” Lately, it seemed as if Christopher’s life was one constant homework session. His course load this semester had him cracking the books at all hours.
    “Yeah.” He sighed, stretching his neck. “Semester physics final cram.” His lip curled with just a hint of the Christopher who hated math and all things related. Music, art, literature, and a host of sports had always been more his thing. This semester, he’d switched tracks and begun working hard to get the background that would be needed for premed.
    “Tough stuff,” I sympathized. Christopher came by his math aversion naturally.
    “Yeah.”
    “Wish I could offer