Tiana Simone didn't remember the drive from Brenda's house to her grandparents'. She remembered crying, because her stomach hurt from crying, because her eyes were swollen and her throat was raw. She remembered Malcolm holding her hand in the back seat, his fingers tight around hers, not saying anything. She remembered Maya asleep in a car seat that wasn't theirs, borrowed from Brenda like everything else.
She remembered walking up the steps of a row house on a street she'd been to before but couldn't picture, and then the door opened, and there was Grandma Ruth.
Ruth was Diane's mother. She had Diane's eyes—the same deep brown, the same way of looking at you like she was trying to memorize your face. Her hair was gray and pulled back, her hands were rough from years of cleaning other people's houses, and when she saw Tiana, she dropped to her knees and opened her arms.
"My baby," she said. "My sweet baby."
Tiana fell into her. Grandma Ruth smelled like cocoa butter and the lavender sachets she kept in her dresser drawers. Her arms were solid, her chest warm, and Tiana held on like she was drowning.
Grandpa James stood in the doorway behind her. He was tall and quiet, with a silver beard and glasses that sat low on his nose. He didn't kneel. He put one hand on Malcolm's shoulder and one hand on Tiana's head, and he stood there, breathing slow.
"Come inside," he said. His voice was gravel and honey. "Come on in."
---
The row house on Gilmor Street became their world.
It was smaller than Brenda's house, narrower, the rooms stacked one behind the other like train cars. The front room had a couch with a crocheted blanket, a television that played reruns of The Jeffersons, and a picture of Jesus on the wall that glowed in the dark. The kitchen was in the back, where Grandma Ruth cooked everything from scratch—greens that simmered all day, cornbread that came out golden, chicken fried in cast iron until the skin cracked.
Tiana woke up the first morning to the smell of bacon and the sound of Grandma Ruth humming. She lay in the bed she shared with Maya, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember where she was. Then she remembered. And the remembering was a hole in her chest that wouldn't close.
She got up and walked to the kitchen in her socks. Grandma Ruth was at the stove, her back to Tiana, her shoulders moving in time with her humming. Tiana stood in the doorway and watched.
"You up early," Grandma Ruth said without turning around. "You hungry?"
Tiana didn't answer. She walked to the table and sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest. The chair was hard. The kitchen smelled like bacon and coffee and the faint sweetness of the lavender sachets.
Grandma Ruth brought a plate to the table. Bacon, eggs, a biscuit with butter melting into it. She sat down across from Tiana and pushed the plate closer.
"Eat."
"I ain't hungry."
"I know. Eat anyway."
Tiana picked up the biscuit. It was warm in her hands. She bit into it and tasted butter and salt and something else—something that made her throat tighten.
"Grandma," she said.
"Mm-hmm."
"Is Mama in heaven?"
Grandma Ruth's hands were folded on the table. Her nails were short, her knuckles swollen. She looked at Tiana for a long moment, and her eyes were wet.
"Yes, baby," she said. "She's in heaven."
"Does she hurt no more?"
Grandma Ruth's chin trembled. She pressed her lips together, then reached across the table and took Tiana's hand. "No, baby. She don't hurt no more."
Tiana nodded. She finished the biscuit. Then she ate the eggs and the bacon, because Grandma Ruth was watching, and because eating was easier than talking.
---
The days that followed became a rhythm. Grandma Ruth woke them early, dressed Maya in clothes she'd bought from the thrift store down the street, brushed Tiana's hair into braids so tight they pulled at her scalp. Grandpa James made coffee and read the newspaper at the kitchen table, the pages rustling loud in the quiet.
Malcolm was quiet. Quieter than he'd been at Brenda's. He spent a lot of time on the front steps, watching the street, not saying much. Tiana found him there one afternoon, sitting with his back against the railing, his knees pulled up.
"What you doin'?" she asked.
"Nothin'."
She sat down beside him. The steps were cold, the iron railing rusted in places. Across the street, a group of boys were kicking a soccer ball against a chain-link fence.
"You miss Michael?" she asked.
Malcolm didn't answer for a minute. Then he said, "Yeah."
"We gonna see him again?"
"Maybe. When school starts."
School. Tiana had almost forgotten about school. The thought of it felt strange, like something from another life. "You think we gonna stay here?"
Malcolm looked at her. His face was hard to read. "I don't know."
"I want to stay here," Tiana said. "With Grandma."
Malcolm didn't say anything. He looked back at the street, and Tiana looked too, and they sat there together until Grandma Ruth called them in for dinner.
---
Before they left Brenda's house, Michael had stood on the porch with his hands shoved in his pockets, watching Malcolm load his bag into the car. Tiana remembered the way Michael's face crumpled when Malcolm hugged him, quick and hard, the way boys do when they don't want anyone to see them feel too much.
"You gonna write me?" Michael had asked.
"I don't have your address," Malcolm said.
"I'll give it to you. My mom said you can call, too."
Malcolm nodded. He took the scrap of paper Michael handed him, folded it small, tucked it into his pocket. "I'll call."
"You better."
They stood there for a moment, and then Brenda came out with Maya's car seat, and it was time to go. Michael waved from the porch until the car turned the corner.
Tiana watched Malcolm in the rearview mirror. He was looking out the window, his hand in his pocket where the paper was. She wondered if he was thinking about Michael, or about Mama, or about nothing at all. She couldn't tell anymore.
I'm not afraid of death, I'm afraid of what comes after. The words came to her, quiet and unwelcome. She didn't know what they meant. But they stayed.
---
Grandma Ruth told stories at night.
After dinner, after Maya was asleep, after the dishes were dried and put away, Tiana and Malcolm would sit on the couch while Grandma Ruth sat in her chair—the big one with the worn armrests—and Grandpa James sat on the ottoman, his long legs folded, his glasses off, his eyes half-closed.
She told them about Diane as a girl. How she'd been stubborn, how she'd talk back, how she'd climb the tree in the backyard until her mother yelled at her to come down. How she'd loved to dance, would put on music in the kitchen and spin until she was dizzy.
"She was a handful," Grandma Ruth said, smiling in a way that made her eyes shine. "But she had a good heart. The best heart."
Tiana listened with her whole body. She wanted to remember every word, hold it somewhere safe where it couldn't be lost.
"She loved y'all," Grandma Ruth said. "More than anything. That's the one thing I know for sure."
"If she loved us," Malcolm said, his voice flat, "why'd she leave?"
The room went still. Grandpa James opened his eyes. Grandma Ruth looked at Malcolm, and her face did something complicated—pain and love and something else, something Tiana didn't have a name for.
"Baby," Grandma Ruth said, "your mama was sick. Not in her body. In her head. In her heart. Some pain is so big, you can't see nothing else."
Malcolm didn't say anything. He stared at his hands, and Tiana watched him, and she wanted to say something to make it better, but she didn't know what.
What's going on inside your head? I know you're hurting, I can see it on your face. The words came to her like a whisper, like something she'd heard in a dream.
Grandma Ruth leaned forward. "She loved you, Malcolm. Don't ever doubt that. She just didn't know how to love herself."
Malcolm nodded once. Then he got up and went to the front room, and Tiana heard the door open, heard him sit on the steps.
She started to get up, but Grandma Ruth shook her head. "Let him be, baby. Some things gotta be alone."
Tiana stayed on the couch. She pulled the crocheted blanket over her legs and leaned her head against the armrest. Grandpa James reached over and patted her foot.
"You okay, sweetheart?"
She nodded. She wasn't, not really. But Grandpa James was patting her foot, and Grandma Ruth was humming, and the kitchen light was warm, and for a moment she let herself pretend that this was how it would always be.
---
The weeks passed. Grandma Ruth took them to the park, to the library, to church on Sundays where they sat in the back and Tiana pressed her face into the hymnal and breathed the smell of old paper. Grandpa James taught Malcolm how to play checkers on a board with missing pieces. He taught Tiana how to whistle, though she never got the hang of it.
One Saturday, they went to the cemetery. Grandma Ruth drove them in her old sedan, the one with the cracked dashboard and the air freshener shaped like a pine tree. They parked on the gravel road and walked across the grass to a grave that was still fresh, the dirt still dark, the headstone simple.
Diane DeAndre. Beloved Mother. Rest in Peace.
Grandma Ruth stood at the grave with her arms crossed, her lips moving silent. Grandpa James stood behind her, his hand on her back. Malcolm stood apart, his hands in his pockets. Tiana held Maya's hand and looked at the name carved in stone.
Mama. The word felt strange in her mouth. She hadn't said it since that morning, when she'd asked Grandma Ruth if Mama was in heaven. She tried to say it now, but nothing came out.
She looked at the dirt, at the flowers that were starting to wilt, at the small American flag someone had stuck in the ground nearby. And she thought, This is where you are now. Under the ground. In the dark.
Her chest ached. She squeezed Maya's hand, and Maya squeezed back.
On the way home, Grandma Ruth was quiet. Grandpa James drove. Malcolm stared out the window. Tiana looked at the back of her grandmother's head, at the gray hair she'd brushed that morning, at the way her hands were folded in her lap.
I'm scared to death that I'll be left behind, I'm scared to death that I'll be the one that they find.
Tiana didn't know where the words came from. They just appeared, like a song she'd heard once and couldn't forget.
---
The morning Grandma Ruth died, Tiana woke to the smell of bacon.
That was the first thing she noticed—the smell. She lay in bed for a moment, warm under the quilt, listening for the sound of her grandmother moving in the kitchen. But there was no clatter of pans, no hum of a song. Just the bacon smell, thick in the air, and the quiet.
She got up. The floor was cold under her feet. She walked down the narrow hallway toward the kitchen, and she saw the stove first—the cast iron skillet on the front burner, bacon blackened to charcoal, smoke curling up toward the ceiling.
Then she saw Grandma Ruth.
She was on the floor. Her robe was open, her slippers still on her feet. Her hand was stretched out toward the stove, like she'd reached for something and missed. Her eyes were closed.
Tiana stood in the doorway. She didn't scream. She didn't move. She stood there, seven years old, and looked at her grandmother on the kitchen floor, and the world went very quiet.
"Grandma?" Her voice came out small. "Grandma?"
No answer. No movement. The bacon smoked and smoked.
Tiana walked closer. She knelt down. She touched Grandma Ruth's hand, and it was cool, cooler than it should be, the way Mama's hand had been in the bedroom.
She sat back on her heels. She didn't cry. She just sat there, staring at her grandmother's face, at the lines that were smoothed out now, at the gray hair that she'd brushed yesterday, at the way her lips were slightly parted like she'd been about to say something.
Behind her, she heard footsteps. Malcolm.
"Tiana?" His voice was thick with sleep. "What's burn—?"
He stopped. She heard him stop.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Malcolm moved. He walked past her to the stove, turned off the burner, pushed the skillet away. He came back and stood beside Tiana, looking down at their grandmother.
"We gotta call 911," he said. His voice was steady. The same voice he'd used when he found Mama.
Tiana nodded. She didn't move. Malcolm went to the phone in the front room, and she heard him dial, heard him speak in that flat, calm voice, heard him give the address.
She stayed on the kitchen floor, holding her grandmother's hand, until the paramedics came and gently moved her aside.
---
They took Grandma Ruth to the same hospital where Mama had died. The same waiting room. The same plastic chairs. Tiana sat with Maya in her lap, staring at the door where the doctor had come out before, the one who'd told them Mama was gone.
Grandpa James sat beside her. His face was gray. His hands were shaking. He kept saying, "She was fine yesterday. She was fine."
Malcolm sat on his other side, quiet.
The doctor came out. He was young, younger than the one who'd talked to them before. He had kind eyes and a soft voice, and Tiana hated him before he even opened his mouth because she knew what he was going to say.
"Mr. DeAndre," he said, "I'm so sorry. Your wife suffered a massive stroke. We did everything we could, but—"
Grandpa James didn't let him finish. He stood up, and for a moment Tiana thought he was going to hit the doctor. But he didn't. He just stood there, swaying, his hand going to his chest.
"James?" The doctor's voice changed. "James, are you okay?"
Grandpa James's face went white. His lips turned blue. He reached out, grabbing the wall, and then his knees buckled.
"Get a gurney!" the doctor shouted, and then there were hands everywhere, nurses and orderlers, and someone was pushing Tiana out of the way, and she was holding Maya, and Malcolm was pulling her back, and Grandpa James was on the floor, his eyes open, not moving.
Tiana screamed. She didn't mean to. It came out of her like something wild, something that had been waiting since Mama died, since Grandma Ruth fell, since everything went wrong. She screamed until her throat was raw, until Malcolm put his arms around her and held her tight.
They took Grandpa James through the same doors they'd taken Grandma Ruth. The same doors they'd taken Mama.
Tiana sat in the waiting room with Maya crying in her arms and Malcolm's arms around her, and she knew. She knew before the doctor came back, before he said the words, before anyone told her anything.
Grandpa James died of a heart attack in the hallway outside the emergency room. The doctor said it was his heart, said the stress was too much, said they did everything they could. The same words. The same apologies.
Tiana sat in the plastic chair and stared at the wall and didn't scream again. There was nothing left to scream.
---
The funerals were three days later.
Two caskets. Two graves. Side by side, next to Diane's. The cemetery was the same, the hill the same, the sky the same gray that couldn't decide if it wanted to rain.
Tiana stood between Malcolm and Maya. Maya was too young to understand, but she cried anyway, the way babies cry when the air is heavy. Malcolm held her on his hip, his face blank, the same blank he'd worn at Mama's funeral. Tiana hated that face. But she understood it now.
People came. Neighbors from Gilmor Street. A few old friends of Grandpa James from the post office where he'd worked. Brenda was there, with Michael. Michael stood with his mother, his hands in his pockets, looking at Malcolm like he wanted to say something but didn't know how.
The preacher said words. The same words he'd said at Diane's funeral, Tiana thought. Or close enough. She didn't listen. She watched the two caskets, side by side, and she thought about Grandma Ruth's hands, rough and warm, folding her into an embrace. She thought about Grandpa James's voice, gravel and honey, patting her foot on the couch.
She thought about the bacon that morning, burning on the stove, the smoke curling toward the ceiling.
It's like I'm looking in the mirror. And I'm seeing someone else.
She didn't know what that meant either. But it was there, in her chest, heavy and sharp.
When they lowered the caskets into the ground, Tiana stepped forward. She had something in her hand—a small lavender sachet, the kind Grandma Ruth kept in her dresser. She'd taken it that morning, before they left the house. She held it over the grave and let it drop.
It landed on the casket, small and purple against the dark wood.
Malcolm came up beside her. He didn't have anything to drop. He just stood there, looking down at the hole, at the dirt, at the lavender sachet.
"I ain't got nobody left," he said. His voice was quiet. Not blank. Just empty.
Tiana looked at him. "You got me."
He didn't answer. He put his hand on her shoulder, and they stood there until the dirt was thrown, until the graves were covered, until the preacher closed his book and the people started to leave.
---
Brenda found them by the cars. Michael was behind her, his face red, his eyes wet.
"Y'all coming with me," Brenda said. It wasn't a question.
Malcolm shook his head. "We gotta go back to the house. Our stuff—"
"I'll get your stuff. You coming with me."
Malcolm looked at Tiana. She looked back at him. She didn't know what she wanted. She didn't know what anything meant anymore.
"We gotta stay together," Malcolm said. It was like he was talking to himself.
"You will," Brenda said. "Y'all staying with me. For now."
Tiana watched Malcolm's face. Something shifted there—relief, maybe, or just tiredness. He nodded.
Brenda drove them back to her house. Michael sat in the back with Tiana and Malcolm, quiet. When they got inside, Brenda made them soup, the kind from a can, with crackers on the side. Tiana ate without tasting it. Maya fell asleep in a playpen Brenda set up in the corner.
Later, Michael sat on the floor in front of Malcolm, his legs crossed, his face serious.
"You still my friend?" he asked.
Malcolm looked at him. For the first time all day, something that wasn't blank flickered in his eyes. "Yeah."
"Okay." Michael nodded. "Good."
They sat there, the two of them, not saying much. And Tiana watched them, and she thought about the row house on Gilmor Street, about the kitchen where Grandma Ruth used to cook, about the front steps where she'd sat with Malcolm watching the boys play soccer.
It was all gone now. The house, the grandparents, the life she'd started to believe might be real.
She looked out the window. The street was quiet. The sky was dark. Somewhere, a dog was barking.
She didn't cry. She sat on the couch with the crocheted blanket from Grandma Ruth's house—Brenda had brought it—and she let the weight of everything settle on her chest. The weight of love. The weight of losing. The weight of being seven years old with nothing left but a brother who was disappearing into his own silence and a sister who didn't know enough to be scared.
I can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this. I need you to know that I'm trying.
She closed her eyes. She didn't know who the words were for—her mother, her grandmother, herself. But they were there, and they stayed, and she let them.
---