The Smart One

Chapter 11





Martha’s new job smelled like death. Or actually, it smelled like dying, which was worse. Death was at least clinical and final. Dying lingered. It was urine-stained couch cushions and shirts with drool on them. It was labored breathing and fake cheery voices that tried to distract the patient from the fact that this was it—his life was coming to a close.

Her first day, Martha showed up to find Jaz scrubbing the wood floor in the den with Pine-Sol. “Just a little accident,” she said. Her voice was pleasant and no-nonsense, the kind of voice you would use when dealing with a child, to let them know that accidents happen, but they’re nobody’s fault, and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

Mr. Cranston sat in his chair and stared straight ahead, not acknowledging Martha or Jaz’s comment. Martha, unsure of what to do, stood in the corner and folded her arms across her stomach. “Accidents happen every day,” she’d said. Then she wanted to die, because Mr. Cranston gave her an accusing look that meant he thought that either she was a moron or she was against him.

“Mr. Cranston loves to read his papers first thing,” Jaz said. She wrung out her rag into the bucket. “Why don’t you go grab those for him—they’re by the front door—and go ahead and put them in the sitting room? When we’re done here, I’ll show you how to get breakfast ready.”

Martha nodded and almost ran from the room to the front of the house, where she picked up the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She was so grateful to get out of that room, that she almost hit her head when she opened the door.

When they met in the kitchen, Jaz told her not to get overwhelmed. “I’m going to be here with you for a couple of weeks until you get it down. Any questions you have, you just ask. I’m not going anywhere, so there’s no reason to get nervous, okay?”

Martha nodded and swallowed. Ever since her stupid comment about accidents happening every day, she felt like she might start crying. But Jaz was kind. And for that, she was very grateful.

“Okay, now. First thing you’ll do when you get here in the morning is make breakfast. It’s the only meal you’ll have to make, but he’s pretty particular about it. He has the same thing every day—two soft-boiled eggs and a piece of whole wheat toast. He used to have bacon too, but that ended about five years ago, when his cholesterol went through the roof. Every once in a while he can still have it, but don’t let him fool you into thinking that he gets it every day, okay?”

Martha nodded again. She was trying to remember everything that Jaz told her, and then, without a word, Jaz handed her a black leather-bound notebook and pen. The breakfast was just the beginning of the instructions. Lunch and dinner were prepared by a cook who came in a few times a week, and stored the meals.

Jaz opened the big shiny refrigerator to reveal shelves full of delicious-looking meals, stored in clean, labeled Tupperware containers. It was the kind of refrigerator that Martha would love to have, full of meals that made her hungry just to read the labels—cold salmon and homemade mayonnaise, mini beef tenderloin sliders with horseradish sauce, fresh arugula with shaves of Parmesan, and little lamb chops, tiny and perfect.

“Don’t worry about getting the food ready,” Jaz said. “The cook writes everything down on this pad over here, and you just follow her instructions. It’s easy. Also, there’s always plenty, so help yourself to whatever you want.”

Martha wanted to stand and stare at the shelves all day. They were so neat and orderly. Imagine having this be your refrigerator! You’d never find an old peach or a soft sweet potato in there, never find a block of moldy cheese and have to wonder when you bought it. Martha was still staring as Jaz shut the door.

The instructions continued. Mr. Cranston could go to the bathroom by himself, but he sometimes needed help walking there, or getting up from his chair. He did not want or need help once he got there. “For now,” Jaz said.

He read all three papers every morning. He did not like to watch TV, except for the seven o’clock news, and sometimes Jeopardy if he was in the mood. If he was extremely tired, you could sometimes persuade him to watch a show; just suggest it like it was something you’d heard about and thought he would like. Nothing popular. No sitcoms. He did not like to watch shows where groups of adults lived together in the city and whined and acted like children. Stick to things like BBC miniseries, as long as there wasn’t too much melodrama.

He was an avid reader and would (at least twice a month) make a list of new books that he wanted. The local bookstore could be called—they had his account information—and they would drop off the books the next day. He had a computer, although he didn’t use it all that often. He did not e-mail. He did sometimes ask to dictate a letter, to an old friend or work acquaintance, which he would want typed up so that he could sign it. “He had a secretary for years,” Jaz explained. “It’s just something he’s used to.”

Mr. Cranston enjoyed crosswords sometimes, and did not like to be interrupted while he worked on them. He did not like to go outside, but Jaz insisted that he get out at least once a day, to go for a walk in his wheelchair. It made him feel like a baby, to be pushed around the block, but Jaz was firm. He needed fresh air and he knew it. If you were firm with him, he would be okay. Just a quick walk, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, down the street and maybe over by the park, but not in the park, because there were almost always children there, and they were so noisy, and he didn’t like to see the way that children were raised these days, like wild animals let loose. Why did they always have snacks with them, their grubby hands full of yogurts and drinks and crackers, like they were going to starve before they got home? “Just trust me,” Jaz said. “Stay out of the park.”

Ruby came over a couple of times a week, whenever she felt like it, really. She usually brought some sort of gift, a book, or a pint of frozen soup that she picked up. “She tries to help, bless her,” Jaz said. But Ruby was often in the way. She insisted that he go on an outing with her, to the store, or maybe to a restaurant for an early dinner.

“Even when he was healthy as a horse, Mr. Cranston never shopped. Never. And he never liked eating out,” Jaz said. “That man would rather eat a peanut butter sandwich than sit in a restaurant.”

His son, Billy, usually came only on the weekends, so Martha would probably never see him, but when he did come he just liked to sit with his father and wasn’t a bother.

Martha wrote everything down. It was a lot of information, but she felt like she could get a handle on it if she could just write it down. The nurses came at night, and as soon as she let them in at six o’clock, she was free to go.

“Don’t take it personal if he gets crabby,” Jaz told her. “He’s an old man and he’s used to having things his way. And now his body’s failing him and that’s hard for him to handle.”

“Okay,” Martha said. “That’s so sad.”

“It’s sad, sure. But it’s just life. We’re here, we live, and we die. Not much you can do about it, so we might as well enjoy it while we can. No use worrying about that.”

Martha couldn’t believe that Jaz really thought this. Who in their right mind wasn’t afraid of dying? She was probably just putting on a brave face so that Martha would feel better about the whole thing. She must be.

Jaz moved around the house with so much purpose. Martha watched as she informed Mr. Cranston that it was time for lunch, suggested that he’d like to take a rest, announced that it was time for a walk. Martha walked behind her, afraid of what Mr. Cranston was going to say, her feet following Jaz’s, stepping right where she had stepped, hoping that this would give her some sort of strength.

When she got home at night, she was so tired she could barely move. The first week, she was in bed by nine each night. She resolved every night as she went to bed that the next day she would act just like Jaz. She would be firm and purposeful. But each morning she woke up and she was still herself—nervous and unsure, following behind Jaz, afraid of upsetting Mr. Cranston.



“IT’S SAD,” MARTHA TOLD HER FAMILY at dinner. “It’s like everyone is just waiting for him to die, including him! Like they’re just killing time. Literally.”

“Well, what did you expect?” Claire asked. “You knew you were going to be a caretaker for an elderly person. It’s not like there’s a lot of different endings to that story.”

“I know, I was just saying that it’s hard. That’s all.”

If Martha was being honest, she missed J.Crew. She missed bossing people around the ribboned shirts and sparkly scarves. She missed her work smelling like new clothes. It had been so clean at the store. There’d been an order to the polos, a calmness to the khakis.

Every night, Weezy asked her how her day had gone as soon as she walked in the door. She asked it nervously, like she was waiting for bad news.

“I think people are waiting for me to fail,” Martha told Dr. Baer.

“Are you waiting for yourself to fail?” Dr. Baer asked. “Do you think you want to fail?”

“No, I don’t want to fail,” Martha said. “Of course I don’t want to fail.” Sometimes Dr. Baer was an idiot.

Martha found herself losing patience during her sessions. I’m a patient losing patience, she often thought when this happened. Dr. Baer didn’t seem all that impressed that she had a new job, that she was practically back to nursing.

“Well, I don’t think that people are waiting for you to fail,” Dr. Baer said. “I think you have a good support system around you, and when people ask you how things are going, they’re really asking just that and nothing more.”

“I guess so.”

“So, how do you feel at the end of the day with Mr. Cranston?”

“Good, I guess.” The truth was that sometimes it was very, very boring. Martha sat still and watched the clock during the days, just waiting for the next activity.

“That’s great,” Dr. Baer said. “It sounds like this job was the right move for you then, something to challenge you a little more.”

“Retail is very challenging,” Martha said. She tried not to sound too offended. “People don’t understand that, but it’s not easy. You don’t just show up and sell things. Plus, I was a manager, which entailed a lot of responsibility. So actually, I don’t think that this job is more challenging in that sense. Not at all.”

“That’s a good point,” Dr. Baer said. “I guess what I meant was that it’s different and new. And new things are always challenging, especially when you’ve gotten comfortable somewhere.”

“Right, I guess that’s true. New jobs are hard,” Martha said. “Actually my sister just got a new job too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she’s temping for an agency, and they already placed her somewhere for a few months.”

“You sound impressed.”

“With Claire? No. I mean, not that I’m not impressed, but I’m not surprised, I guess.”

“No?”

“No. She wanted a job and so she got one.”

“That’s all there was to it?”

“Pretty much. Things come pretty easily for her.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’ve told you that before.”

“You have,” Dr. Baer said. “I just find it interesting that you’re still so sure of that. She’s had a tough year, hasn’t she?”

“Yeah, but still. It’s not like things have happened to her … She’s made the decisions. She ended her engagement, she quit her job, she moved back home. I mean, it’s a lot of changes, but it’s all stuff she wanted to do.”

“But haven’t you made your decisions too?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s different.”

“Different how?”

“Claire has more choices?”

“How so?”

“She just does, she always has.”

“Okay.”

“It’s true.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t true. I just think you can’t be so quick to be so sure of other people’s situations. Examine your own situation. You also have a lot of choices. It’s not always easier for other people. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Sure it does. A lot of times it does work like that.”

“Well, sometimes, I’ll admit it might seem that way. But things aren’t always what they seem.”

After that session, Martha thought about her choices. She thought that maybe she should have been a therapist, so that she could say things like, “Your life isn’t so hard,” and “I see,” over and over again. Now that seemed like an easy life.

NOW THAT CLAIRE WAS TEMPING and she was at the Cranstons’, they were getting up and getting ready at the same time each morning, which they hadn’t done since high school. Sometimes Martha knocked on the bathroom door, pretending to be in a hurry, so that Claire would let her in and they could brush their teeth together, put on makeup side by side.

MARTHA LOVED WHEN RUBY CAME to the Cranston house. She was the prettiest person Martha had ever seen in real life—she always looked a little bit tan, her hair was always shiny. Once, when Martha commented on how glamorous Ruby was, Jaz said, “She should be. She works at it like it’s a job.”

Sometimes, Ruby would sit in the kitchen with Martha and have some tea. Martha always made it, but she didn’t mind. Ruby sort of seemed like a little kid that needed things done for her. The first day that she came, she kept staring at the teapot and saying, “I’d love some tea,” like it was a puzzle she couldn’t figure out. Finally, Martha got up to make the tea, and Ruby smiled at her like she was relieved.

Now Martha offered as soon as Ruby walked into the kitchen, setting out cookies and starting the water boiling. Then, Martha would sit and wait for Ruby to start talking—Ruby loved to talk—hoping that she was going to spill some family secrets.

“We’re not speaking,” Ruby said one day. “My brother and me, I mean. We’re on upsetting terms.” Ruby had a strange way of talking, of putting words together, almost like English wasn’t her first language, or like she wanted people to think that. She dotted her sentences with random phrases, arranged verbs and nouns in odd places, throwing them wherever she pleased.

“Oh really?” Martha asked. She didn’t want to sound too eager, but she was dying to know about Billy.

Ruby sighed. “He’s impossible, if you must know, my brother. He thinks of himself as the most important person in the world. Or rather, he thinks he’s more important than he is, in truth.” Ruby paused to think this over. “I don’t know which one it is, or if there’s even a difference. I’m just telling this to you, so that you understand why we won’t be in the house at the same time. This is why the schedule exists.”

“Of course,” Martha said. “I mean, I understand. Has this been going on for a long time?”

“Forever, it seems like. But in actual time, only a few years. Since my mom died, really. Billy thinks he’s in charge of everything.”

“Families are tricky,” Martha said.

“Isn’t that the truest thing,” Ruby said, and Martha felt like the cleverest person in the world.

MARTHA LOVED SENDING HER COUSIN CATHY long e-mails about her job and the Cranstons. She told her about Jaz and Ruby, and talked about how degrading it must be for Mr. Cranston to basically need a babysitter at this point in his life. Cathy loved hearing about her work, always responded by telling her how funny and insightful she was, sometimes suggesting that Martha should be a writer, which always thrilled Martha.

Martha and Cathy had always gotten along well, mostly because they found each other entertaining. Martha always said how lucky she was that her best friend was her cousin too. And the fact that she was a lesbian was just an added bonus. Martha thought it made her sound very cool and accepting when she said things like, “I’m going to visit my cousin Cathy and her partner, Ruth. She’s great, Ruth is. They’ve been together for a while now, my cousin and her partner.”

She used to talk about Cathy all the time at J.Crew, partly because she wanted Wally to know that she was not only accepting of his lifestyle, but that she too had gay friends and family. She made references to Cathy a lot, until one day Wally said, “You don’t have to call her Cathy my cousin who’s a lesbian every time you talk about her. We get it, sweetie. You’re related to a dyke.”

Martha wanted to tell him that she didn’t like that term, that she found it offensive, but she wasn’t sure she was allowed to, since Wally was gay himself. She just cut back on her talk about Cathy at work.

Cathy had come out via e-mail to the family during her freshman year in college. Martha had read the note, and then called home immediately, knowing that Weezy wouldn’t have checked her e-mail yet. She was excited to be the one to break the news, basically yelled it out as soon as Weezy answered the phone.

“Oh,” Weezy had said. “Well, honey, you aren’t surprised, are you?”

Martha actually was surprised, but not because she couldn’t imagine that Cathy was a lesbian—she actually could, now that she thought about it. But she just hadn’t thought about it one way or the other before. Cathy was just her cousin, who was sometimes bossy and always knew the most scandalous information growing up, like what French kissing really entailed, and what the definition of third base was.

“No,” Martha had said. “I guess I’m not surprised.” She was, however, sad that she wasn’t able to shock Weezy with this information. Martha loved a good piece of gossip and this one was a doozy.

Cathy was very excited about Martha’s new job, and even more excited at the idea that Martha might get a place of her own. Martha had mentioned this idea briefly one time, and now Cathy wouldn’t let it drop.

“Things are cheaper in Ohio,” she reminded Cathy one night on the phone. “I can’t afford a place just yet.”

“Martha, you’re thirty. You can’t afford not to afford your own place.”

AFTER TWO WEEKS, JAZ STARTED leaving Martha alone with Mr. Cranston. First, she just ran little errands, but with each day she left for longer stretches of time. “I need to run to the store,” she’d say. Martha knew that she was being tested during this time, to see if she could handle it and also to see if Mr. Cranston was okay with her being there.

“I get the feeling that if he doesn’t like me, they’ll just fire me,” Martha told her family one night.

“Of course he’ll like you,” Weezy said. And Will had nodded in agreement, and that was that.

Most of her time with Mr. Cranston was quiet, sometimes just sitting together and reading. Martha learned to bring a book with her, so that if Mr. Cranston wanted to read all afternoon, she could do the same. At first, she would walk around the house, trying to find something to do, refolding blankets and hanging them over the edge of the couch, or getting Mr. Cranston a fresh glass of water.

Eventually, Jaz told her to settle down. “There are people that come to this house to do all of these jobs. All your job is, all you have to worry about, is keeping him company and making sure he gets what he needs. Most of the time it’s not too hard, right? So just settle down and enjoy the quiet time.”

Martha had nodded, although her feelings had been a little hurt. She was a doer. She couldn’t help it. That’s why she’d been so great at J.Crew. She loved moving around and keeping busy, making things look pretty.

But after a few days, Martha realized that Jaz had been trying to help her. She could see that it annoyed Mr. Cranston when she moved around too much, that it disturbed his reading when she walked in and out of the room. He didn’t like to call for help, would never shout to the next room that he needed something. He liked someone to be right there, so that he could just turn his head and Martha could say, “Did you need to go to the restroom?” or “Are you thirsty?”

Jaz was agitated lately, on the phone with her family often, and she confided in Martha that she didn’t like the “no-good” man that her daughter was dating.

“If she marries him, so help me God, I will kidnap her and leave the country.”

“Is he abusive?” Martha asked. She was imagining Jaz and her daughter running for their lives.

“Is he what? No, child. He’s just a lazy shit.”

“Oh.”

“Mark my words, if they end up getting married, my Marly will work herself to the bone, while he lays around the house smoking dope in his skivvies and watching talk shows.”

“Did you tell her that you don’t like him?”

“Did I tell her? I tell her every day that he’s worthless. I tell him, too, when I see him. It doesn’t seem to help. He don’t scare easy, I’ll give him that.”

Martha tried to imagine what it would be like to have Jaz as a mother, or to be in a family where people just said exactly what they were thinking, shouting their opinion no matter what it was. She didn’t see how much good could come from that.

ONE AFTERNOON, MARTHA WAS IN Mr. Cranston’s office, looking for a new credit card to give to the bookstore. “The old one expired,” Jaz told Martha on her way out the door. “The new one is on his desk, I think. Just call them with the new number. He’s getting cranky and needs his books.”

The desk was covered with folders and file cards that had notes and lists written on them. Martha felt like she was snooping, even though Jaz had told her to go through the papers. She carefully lifted one set of folders and placed them to the side, then picked up a couple of loose pieces of paper and that was when she saw the manila folder, labeled FUNERAL.

She couldn’t believe it. She glanced at the door and then opened the folder before she could even stop herself. It was full of old funeral mass booklets, some of which were marked with Mr. Cranston’s handwriting. There were readings that were circled, and some that were crossed over with a big X, sometimes a NO written next to it for good measure.

Martha heard a noise in the hall and she shut the folder quickly. She spotted the new credit card, grabbed it, and ran out into the hall holding it in the air, like it was a badge proving that she wasn’t snooping. But no one was there.

All afternoon, Martha kept thinking about what it must be like for Mr. Cranston to plan his own funeral. How scary it must be to know that death was coming. Of course, she knew that death was coming for everyone, but it must be strange to know without a doubt that it was coming soon. He was so organized, so efficient. It looked like just another business file on his desk, just one more thing to cross off his list.

Sometimes, imagining her own funeral, Martha could make herself cry. She didn’t sob, but if she pictured her parents and siblings sitting in a pew, pictured Cathy bent over with grief, she could get a tear or two out. After all, it would be such a tragedy, such a shame if she were to die now.

There were times when Martha imagined that she’d died of a long and drawn-out disease, which would give her time to prepare, as Mr. Cranston was doing. She would write letters to all the people that were important to her, and leave instructions for them to be opened on the day of her funeral. And of course, she’d write an open letter to be read at the actual service. She’d probably have Claire read it—her parents would be too distraught, and Max wasn’t great at public speaking. She could have Cathy do it, but she was a little rough sometimes, and Martha would want the letter to be read with quiet emotion. Claire would be devastated too, of course, but Martha would explain that it was her last sisterly duty, and Claire would come through.

Martha wondered if she was the only one who thought about these kinds of things. She could daydream about her funeral for hours, imagining the people from her past that would show up, the ones that would be shocked to hear the news. She worried sometimes that this wasn’t normal, but then she told herself that people talked about death all the time. At least once a month, usually after she’d had to go retrieve something from the attic or the basement, Weezy would say, “I pity you children, if your father and I die unexpectedly. It will take you a decade to clean out this house.”

Once, her grandma Bets had announced at a family dinner that she’d like to be cremated and have her ashes split between her two daughters. Later that night, Martha overheard Weezy and Maureen talking about it.

“That gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Weezy said. “What do you think possessed her to say that?”

“I think she wants to make sure that she’ll always be with us,” Maureen answered. “Judging and disapproving our every move from her urn.”

The two of them had laughed, but Martha was disturbed. Maybe she’d like to be cremated too. Then she could be with her family, instead of underground, and they could take her with them wherever they went. But then what would happen after all of them were gone too? Her ashes would be passed around, and then, eventually, generations later, someone would say, “What is this thing?” and they’d get sick of taking care of the urn, probably find it creepy, and put it in the garbage. So maybe cremation wasn’t the best choice.

When she was younger, she’d seen a mausoleum in a graveyard and asked Weezy what it was. “Can we get one of those?” she asked. To her, it seemed like the perfect solution, to be with your family, above-ground, so that no critters could get to you. It was just like a little house. But Weezy had told her no.

“You’ll grow up and have your own family,” she’d said. “And you’ll want to be buried near them too.” But that seemed impossible to Martha at the time, to grow up and have a family of her own. She’d always secretly thought that she could buy a mausoleum after her parents died, but then for their fiftieth birthdays, Bets had given each of her parents a plot in Saint Ambrose’s graveyard.

RUBY KEPT BRINGING PRESENTS for her father—a blanket, a CD, a new movie for him to watch. Mr. Cranston never seemed to like any of the things that she gave to him, but she seemed determined to keep trying. Once she brought him an iPad, and insisted that he try to play Angry Birds.

“Here, Dad, put your finger here and then shoot the bird like this.”

“What? Why am I doing this?” he asked.

“To try to kill the pigs,” Ruby explained. “I know it seems strange, but I think you’ll really like it. It’s totally addicting.” Ruby had a tendency to sound like a teenager when she talked to her dad.

Mr. Cranston humored her, putting his finger to the screen, and then looking surprised when there was the sound of a bird screaming and pigs snorting. “What the hell is this thing?” he asked.

Ruby had just laughed. “We can put it away for now,” she said. “But you should try it later. I really think you’ll like it.” Martha was pretty sure that Mr. Cranston never touched the iPad again, and sometimes it made her sad, how badly Ruby wanted to find something that would make her father happy.

MARTHA HAD STARTED TO DREAM about the Cranstons. She figured it was just from spending so much time there. After all, she’d had more J.Crew stress dreams than she could even count. The number of times she’d woken up in a panic, sweating, because no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get the sweaters to stay folded and in a pile. Oh, those were the worst! As soon as she managed to wrangle one sweater, another one fell out, and another. Around the holidays, when the store was at its craziest, Martha barely slept.

But the dreams about the Cranstons were a little different. In them, Martha was part of the family. They weren’t stressful at all, except for one where Ruby’s hair fell out and she screamed at Martha. But usually, the dreams were just Martha sitting around with the family, watching TV or eating dinner. They sort of reminded her of the dreams she used to have when she was younger, where she was a part of the Huxtables or the Full House family.

Dr. Baer told her she might be getting a little too involved. “I understand it’s hard when you spend so much time with a family, and you get wrapped up in their business. But just remember to keep a little distance. You’re there as the caretaker.”

People were always telling Martha not to get too involved. She didn’t understand it. How could anyone be too involved? Didn’t that just show people that you cared? What did people want? Did they want everyone to just walk around, pretending that they didn’t see anyone else, didn’t notice a thing? That was ridiculous.

In college, Martha was always the first one to step up and tell one of the girls if she needed to break up with her boyfriend. “He’s not treating you right,” she’d say. She’d demand that the girl end it. How could she not step in when she saw something bad happening?

The girls that she was trying to help almost always got annoyed with her. “Mind your own business, Martha,” they’d say. But she wouldn’t let it drop. After all, they were the ones who offered up the information in the first place, who told her about the things their boyfriends said, the suspicions they had about cheating. What else was she supposed to do?

“People don’t want to hear that they’re with the wrong person,” Claire told her once. “And unless they’re being abused in some way, the most you can really say is that you think they can do better. Or that they should be treated better. But that’s it.”

Martha disagreed. She’d just ended a friendship with a girl in her nursing program, Ann, who had refused to break up with her boyfriend.

“Look,” Claire said. “I get what you’re saying. But at the end of the day, it’s not really your business. People don’t always want the truth, and you don’t always know what the real truth is. It’s not worth losing a friend over.”

But Martha had lost a friend. Ann never forgave her for the things that she’d said, and she ended up marrying the guy. Martha didn’t get it. Weren’t friends there to tell you the truth? Weren’t you supposed to get involved?

WHEN MR. CRANSTON HAD A doctor’s appointment, either Jaz or Ruby took him. He preferred Jaz, because Ruby usually got herself all worked up, thinking the doctor was going to find something fatal during these visits.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mr. Cranston told her once. “I’m already dying. What else could they tell me?”

“Oh, Dad,” Ruby said. She went to the upstairs bathroom and shut herself in for almost fifteen minutes.

“Well, now we’ll never get out of here,” he said. He crossed his arms and waited for her to come downstairs.

“Why does he have so many appointments?” Martha asked Jaz. “Is there something wrong with him?”

“He’s old, child. Things have started failing. He’s having trouble breathing, his heart’s giving out, you name it, it’s happening to him.” She didn’t know how Jaz could be so matter-of-fact about it.

It seemed to Martha that Mr. Cranston got a little smaller each day, just a tiny bit weaker than he was the day before. Could she be imagining it? When they sat together and read, sometimes he fell asleep in the middle of a page, the book open on his lap, his mouth open with a little bit of drool at the corner. His skin looked so thin while he slept, the veins so close to the surface. Martha knew he should rest if he was tired, but what she really wanted to do was make noise until he woke up and moved around, until he looked alive again.

MARTHA COULDN’T HELP BUT TALK about the Cranstons when she was at home. She was always dying to share new information about them, or tell her family what she thought was behind the rift between Ruby and Billy.

“You sound a little obsessed with them,” Claire said one night. Claire had started cooking dinner for the family, claiming that she was so bored at her temp job, all she could do was look up recipes on the computer. She’d made some truly amazing things, like tonight’s dinner of tarragon chicken in cream sauce, scalloped cherry tomatoes, and twice-baked potatoes.

“You’re going to send us all to the fat farm,” Weezy said when she sat down that night.

“I’m not obsessed with them,” Martha told Claire. “I’m just interested. They’re interesting.”

“It’s a fine line between interested and obsessed,” Claire said, but Martha wasn’t offended. Claire had never met them, so she didn’t understand. The Cranstons were the kind of people who had an interesting story, who had many interesting stories. They were the kind of people that once you met them, you just wanted to learn everything you could about their lives.