48.

Three months after Grandma Pencil was exiled, McKenna moved in with her.

But why? Was she such a devoted granddaughter? Did she really adore Annabelle, even to the point of worship, as some have speculated?

Not to burst any balloons, but it was a space issue. The Mapes house had three bedrooms. Toby and McKenna were almost nineteen and still sharing a 16' × 18' box. Do the math.

“Cripes, I had my own apartment when I was seventeen,” Murray said. “Don’t you at least want your own room?”

It was a practical matter. A matter of convenience. A win-win situation. A no-brainer.

Left unspoken were a few additional factors that may have prompted Murray’s “impromptu” dinner table discussion with McKenna while Toby “happened” to be at the gym and Audrey “happened” to be upstairs wearing headphones, cramming for a history test on her new bed. It was 7 p.m. Murray sipped at his can of Pabst. Every few seconds, he fiddled with his new hearing aid and cocked his head as if trying to pour his brains out onto the table. He looked powdery and lost.

McKenna couldn’t concentrate. She kept expecting her mother to appear at the saloon-style kitchen doors. Her voice sounded as real as the wood grain under McKenna’s fingertips: “Will you be dining with us, Murr, or should I pop in a Hungry Man?”

“Well?”

This was Murray, asking McKenna a question.

“I don’t need my own room,” McKenna shrugged. “I don’t hang out in there very much.”

“I don’t hang out in the burn ward,” he said, “but you won’t find me sleeping there.” He frowned, and then alternated snapping his fingers on each side of his head. “Everything sounds like a tin can.”

“Does Toby want me to go?” McKenna said.

“He didn’t say that.” Murray moistened his lips with his tongue. “But yes, he does. He needs space. You need space. You’re adults now. Those drapes ain’t a wall.”

When Toby and McKenna turned thirteen, Murray had installed a rod and curtain in the middle of their ceiling. The curtain provided privacy for dressing and sleeping, and it could be pushed out of the way when not in use. However, it had the unforeseen effect of making the room feel like a hospital. Still, McKenna had never slept anywhere else.

“Why doesn’t Toby get his own place?” McKenna said. “He’s got a job.”

Murray bounced a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket. “The thing is, Grandma Pencil could use the company,” he said. He struck a match, puffed, then shook the match and dropped it on the table. He would have never done this when Misty was alive. The smoldering match reminded McKenna of her mother’s corpse.

“You’ve always been the closest to Grandma,” Murray continued. He blew out a cloud, then tipped his head back and touched the glands in his neck. He was always “coming down with something” these days. “You two are sort of alike, I think. You might enjoy yourself. You probably have a lot to talk about.”

McKenna felt herself flush. She tugged at one of her braids. Pippy Longstocking. That’s what they’d called her at St. Monica’s. Half a decade later, she still wore her hair like this. What was the point of changing?

“Listen, Mac,” Murray said. He fixed her with a stare. Jarring to meet those eyes. His face was in the midst of a quiet collapse, the erosion of aging, but his eyes still gleamed like precious stones. “I always thought you were the most like me. Out of all you kids, I saw myself in you.” He snapped his fingers at his ear. “You keep to yourself. You’re a thinker. Toby . . . Christ, who knows where that kid came from. He scares me, frankly. He’s my son, but what the hell? Protein shakes, flaxseed oil, bandannas? Kid’s a tree.” He knocked on the table for emphasis. “But that’s how we raised you kids. We wanted you to find your own direction. That’s what you did. And your mom and I were always proud of you. You, Mac. We probably didn’t say it enough, but I’m saying it now. We didn’t mind that you weren’t dating, proms, mall, who cares about that stuff? That’ll definitely be Audrey’s thing, doesn’t have to be your thing. Dating’s overrated, frankly.” He rang the Pabst can gently, a liquid bell, before draining the remainder into his gullet. “I mean, I wish you’d eat better. That’s not a criticism. It’s just . . . what it is. Take it or leave it.” He looked around the dining room. He sniffed. “It’s weird, isn’t it, without all the bowls?”

McKenna nodded. “Very.”

“Be right back.” Murray scooted his chair and went into the kitchen. McKenna heard the basement door open and his footsteps descending.

A minute later, he returned with a shoebox and a fresh beer. He slid the box across the table and sat down. “You probably haven’t heard much noise from the basement in a while,” he said. He didn’t wait for McKenna to answer. “I’ve slowed down over the years. But I haven’t been picking my butt down there.” He smiled and winked, “Well, maybe a little picking.” He nodded at the box. “I figure that’s my last invention. I made it for you, kiddo.”

The box was so light it felt empty. Was this some kind of perverse commentary on her weight? Was he saying she was empty inside? He’d always been absent, but he’d never been cruel. Audrey had put him up to this. Audrey and Toby. McKenna worked her stomach and throat, but there was nothing to bring up.

“Go on, open it,” Murray said.

Inside was a black plastic contraption, perhaps seven inches wide, which resembled a miniature clothes hanger with two clips on the bottom. Instead of a hook on the top, there was a one-inch plastic arm with a tiny, hooded light bulb on its end.

“Pull that light,” Murray said.

When McKenna pulled, the plastic arm extended to five inches. As it extended, the arm curved, and when it was pulled out all the way, the bulb lighted. McKenna slid the arm back to its nested position, and the bulb turned off.

“You’re a reader,” Murray said. “The clips keep your book open, and now you can read in the dark.” For a brief moment, his face was alive again, excited, exactly as McKenna remembered from when she was a girl. She hadn’t dreamed this part of her life after all.

McKenna was crying without knowing why. It wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t sadness. It was something relatively unpleasant, like shame.

Murray had turned his attention to the dirt under his finger-nail.

McKenna wanted to speak—a joke, a gush of appreciation, anything—but her mind was caught in a per sis tent loop, a needle skipping again and again on words spoken ten minutes earlier:

You two are sort of alike. You might enjoy yourself. You probably have a lot to talk about.

The questions, the questions. A swarm of bees in her head. A thousand minds, chaos, but all working together. Please don’t sting me.

“I’ll move out tomorrow,” McKenna said.