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say.”
    “There ’ s no yelling. No fighting. Just the wind and the meadow.”
    “It ’ s nice. ”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you worried about Hank?” Margie’s taken the silver box out of her purse again and she’s turning it over in her hands. I see it’s etched with little flowers. Very detailed. I think it’s maybe a touchstone for Margie.
    “No,” I say and it’s the truth.
    Margie’s fingers quiet down and she holds the box in one palm.
    “What is that?” I ask.
    She gestures for me to hold out a hand and sets the little box on my palm. I expect it to be warm, but it’s cold. I expect it to be light, but it’s heavy.
    “I made it. You know what I do for a living?”
    I think back to stuff Mom said, to Margie’s T-shirt in the hospital. “A metallurgist or something?”
    “That’s right. This little thing”—she touches one finger to the top of the box—“is a hobby.” Margie’s whole body sighs. “Metal runs in our veins, kiddo. The little cat your dad made?”
    I nod.
    “Looks like he couldn’t get away from it either. No matter what we did, it all came back to this.” She brushes her fingertips across the box’s lid.
    “Didn’t that make Grandpa Henry happy?” I ask even though I know the answer already. Grandpa Henry owns—owned—a company called Berkenshire Metalworks. The only thing I know about it is that Hank didn’t want to install rain gutters or build chain link fences or put up security gates.
    Margie shakes her head. “I’m afraid nothing ever did. I stopped trying when I left home.”
    “Hank too. For a while.”
    “Yes, Hank too.”
    “He was happy when he painted, when he made those little animals for me. Not always happy, but better than after he went to work for Grandpa Henry.”
    “Your mom said he started drinking.”
    “When I was little. I think he hated his jobs.” Every year a different color uniform shirt, but always his name embroidered on the chest. Hank. At first, just six-packs of beer disappeared overnight. And then after Grandpa Henry, more than just beer. Big bottles of whiskey gone in a flash and Mom and me seeing a lot of movies on school nights so we weren’t home before he passed out.
    Margie sees my frowning face, pulls me close and cuts off my breath with her tight hug. “You don’t have to worry about that now, Lilybeans.”
    I think Margie, with her not knowing that Hank wanted to kill me too, believes we’ll be safe. I also know if she doesn’t think she can protect me, she’ll call up Mack and Darcy. Fear and a promise to Mom will make her think of their ranch in the middle of the desert where Hank can’t find me. If she knew about his bullets for me, she’d send me today.
    I shove these thoughts away, these Mack and Darcy thoughts. I think about Hank’s dead-and-cold father instead. “Do we need to bury Grandpa Henry?” I ask.
    Margie shakes her head. “He took care of everything and there’s no way I’m seeing him laid to rest.”
    “Okay, I understand.”
    “Anyone you want to say good-bye to before we go?” Margie’s voice tells me she already knows there isn’t.
    “No.”
    We wait a little longer, for a whisper, a good-bye , to come along.
    It doesn’t.
     

 
Eleven
     
    On the way back from the meadow, we visit Margie’s mom in an old cemetery. She wants to say something, probably tell her what Hank did. I turn my back and wander a little ways while she talks to the ground. I try not to hear what she says, but I catch snippets anyway. “You should have left Dad when we were young, when we had a chance. You knew what he was capable of.”
    I walk farther away so Margie has privacy, keeping watch for Hank, wondering if he’d be so stupid. So far, there is no Hank. So far, there’s only a feeling of him out there with his patient waiting, with his imaginary picture-taking that says see you later .
    The cemetery is nice. It's one of those old ones with leaning headstones that have grass growing up around them.