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one?”
    “My baby girl. My Janey.” Another pause. “That’s you.”
    Billy’s mom practically beamed sunshine. “Yes, that’s me.”
    Three cheers for the redirect. Billy took a swig of milk. Conversations with Gramps were always like this: circular paths with no points other than to encourage the old man to cling on to memories of better times. And they had to be old memories; the more recent ones—which could be anywhere from now to twenty-some-odd years ago—had the potential to turn Gramps violent. At least at school, Billy knew where he stood. At home, it was a constant exercise in tiptoeing around landmines. It was exhausting. Billy had no idea how his mom did it.
    “Would you like more macaroni and cheese, Dad?”
    “Where’s Jack?”
    Billy’s mother stiffened. She kept smiling, but it seemed brittle around the edges. Billy felt bad for her, but really, by now she should be taking that particular question in stride. Jack Ballard had walked out the door many years ago and hadn’t looked back.
    “Jack doesn’t live here anymore, Dad. More mac and cheese?”
    “What happened to Jack?”
    “We divorced, Dad.”
    Gramps slammed his fist on the table, making all the plates rattle and the plastic cups jump. “I know that! What’s he doing here?” He jabbed his spoon in Billy’s direction.
    Lather, rinse, repeat.
    Billy shoveled food into his mouth without tasting it. Yeah, no doubt about it, Gramps was off his meds tonight. Or, to be more accurate, his grandfather’s new meds were “underperforming.” That was the doctor’s favorite word, and Billy’s mother had confiscated it, throwing it around in casual conversation as if a fifty-cent word would suddenly make Alzheimer’s something manageable.
    Stupid doctors with their stupid words. Nothing made it manageable. Didn’t people understand that the old man ranting at the table wasn’t Billy’s grandfather? The real Gramps had checked out without paying the bill. Call it Alzheimer’s. Call it dementia. Call it anything at all, but the thing sitting next to Billy’s mom was nothing but a doppelganger. Gramps—his Gramps—was gone.
    Billy’s eyes stung. No, he wasn’t going to cry. He mimicked his mother and smiled hugely, smiled until his cheeks screamed. His tears froze in his eyes, just like the smile froze on his face. Yes, his grandfather was long gone. All Billy could do was call the old man “Gramps” and pretend that it mattered.
    Billy Ballard desperately hoped he’d get better at pretending, because this pantomime of normalcy was sucking him dry.
    ***
    After dinner, Billy’s mother kissed Gramps and told him to behave, kissed Billy and told him that she loved him, and then she escaped to work the late shift at the convenience store. When she had first taken on the second job—the money she made from her freelance projects just wasn’t enough to pay Gramps’s rising medical bills—Billy had suggested that he, too, start working. But his mom had smiled and shook her head. He had to stay home, she insisted, because he had two important jobs: take care of Gramps, and keep up his grades. “Full scholarship,” his mom would say proudly whenever Billy brought home another A on a report or a hundred on a test. That was the plan: Billy was to get into college, any college, with a full four-year scholarship.
    And then he could be just like his dad—he’d go away and never look back. Until then, it was bullies and bruises and babysitting Gramps.
    Billy parked his grandfather in front of the television and checked all the locks on the doors and windows and made sure the hallways were empty so that the old man could wander without hurting himself. Checkpoints all clear, Billy told Gramps where he’d be and to just call out if he needed anything. His grandfather muttered something that was lost in Bob Barker’s chatter about how the price was right. Once again, Billy blessed whoever had come up with the Game Show Network, and then