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Don’t you remember?”
    I shake my head. No.
    “And grinding your teeth.” Caleb bares and grinds his own teeth in imitation as he glances at me. Waiting for meto say something. He shifts, picks up and twists a piece of my hair between his fingers. Red thread on a white spool.
    I don’t answer. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to talk about it.
    Caleb sighs, then swings up and stomps his feet on the floor. Cups a hand around his neck and cracks the bones awake. “I wish I could take better care of you, Lily,” he says. “I wish I could make it right for you.”
    “Then buy me a cup of coffee at the Co-op,” I answer, “because it’s essential that I caffeinate in the next hour.”
    “That, mademoiselle, I can do.”
    Another thing I love about Caleb. He always knows when to back off.

9 — STUNNING BLOW
Jane
    Granpa could kill a bee with one finger.
    His pointer finger, to be exact. As soon as the bee had landed on the hard surface of an armrest or windowsill, he’d sneak up behind it. Then,
squish
as his finger mashed its tail. Easy as pressing up a crumb from a tablecloth.
    “It can’t hurt you. Their stinger’s up front,” he’d explain.
    Still. Jane didn’t like it. One finger, creeping up from behind. Singling you out.
    Granpa didn’t kill bees for fun. He killed them for bait. “Nothing tempts a brook trout like a hooked bee skimming across the surface of the water,” he’d say. “And a real bee works better’n a fake.”
    But wasn’t a dead bee fake? Jane brooded over it. Because it was no longer real.
    Inside Granpa’s tackle box, dead bee husks were mixed with other crayon-bright fishing baits. Flies, these baitswere called, though they weren’t just flies, but all sorts of insects. Jane knew some of the names. Jeweled damsels, Cahills, peacocks, midges.
    This morning, Granpa did not want to squish bees.
    “Help me knot this, Janey?” he said. “You’ve got those skinny malinky fingers.” He handed her a bead-head bird fly. It looked like an earring. A tuft of brown feather, a silver drop.
    Her grandfather’s hands often trembled. Jane was used to taking over the more delicate tasks for him. She liked doing it. It made her feel useful. Like clicking his seat belt into place or putting the quarters into the stamp machine at the post office. Or knotting flies.
    “Might be time for us to go up to Lake Pettaquamscutt again,” Granpa said.
    Jane looked up. “Are you sure?”
    He nodded. “Sure I’m sure.”
    Jane had always wanted to go back to the lake. But her first trip to Lake Pettaquamscutt had also been her last. She had been twelve. Lily had been invited, too, but she was off on one of her play dates, so she hadn’t come along.
    The trip had started perfectly. No matter how hard she’d tried, Jane could not find the early warning signs. The signs were always there, though. Always.
    She must not have been looking hard enough.
    In the car, they had listened to
Alexander of Macedon
on tape. Jane had heard the tape so many times, she knew thestory of Alexander by heart. The familiar words made the car time go more easily. Her grandparents understood that.
    Lake Pettaquamscutt rolled into view just as Aristotle had arrived at court to be Alexander’s tutor. Two arrivals at the same time. That was a good sign.
    Augusta gave her a pair of sunglasses. The sunglasses were fun. Jane pretended she was a movie star on vacation, being spied on by fans.
    “Very well, then, a few autographs, and then, darlings, you must leave me in peace.”
    Neither of her grandparents paid her any mind when she talked out loud. Augusta sat on a blanket on the shore, knitting, while Granpa trudged out deeper into the lake in his hip waders.
    Then Granpa caught a bite.
    “Ho-ho!” he called. His arms jerked as the hooked fish pulled. “Here’s a big boy!”
    As Jane watched on in horror, Granpa came back to shore, took hold of the fish, and pounded its head against a stone. Jane watched as