When Daddy died, I had to be strong. For my brother. He was only nine, and I was almost twelve. So I could handle it a lot better. Sure, it was a shock. He just suddenly got sick. It turned out he’d had cancer for a while, but they didn’t find it until just before he died.

Sure, I cried some. It’s not like I didn’t feel anything. But mostly I was worried about Albie. He didn’t understand at all, and sometimes he’d cry, for hours, but sometimes he’d just get angry, like it wasn’t fair and me and Mom were supposed to stop it. And I’d try to explain, but he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to hear about cancer, and how it sometimes just happened. He would explode and start to scream, like if he screamed hard enough it would bring Dad back.

And I couldn’t do anything, except watch. Because he wouldn’t ...