I shrugged. “He came stumbling in around midnight and started bugging me. When I told him to leave me alone, he grabbed me from behind, wrapped his arms around my chest, and started squeezing.”

Susan finished zipping her jeans and sat down on the bed next to me. She put her hand on my shoulder. “What did you do?”

“I told him to stop. When he refused, I stood up, and we sort of reeled around the kitchen for a bit. I finally managed to throw him off, and he fell backwards through the screen door. He bounced down the back steps, rolled a couple of times, and ended up flat on his ass in the middle of the yard. He wasn’t very happy about that.”

Susan edged closer, her arm dropping from my shoulder to my waist. She knew all about life with my grandfather. Her mother drank. She was a nice woman when she was sober, but hell on wheels after a few martinis. Jean disappeared for days at a time. She’d return on her own or Mike would find her holed up in some flea-bag motel. He’d sent her to rehab half a dozen times. Despite this, Susan’s house was more peaceful than my own, perhaps because Jean preferred to do her carousing away from home. When Susan had lived at home, her house had been a refuge for me from Hunter’s weekend binges. In the Savas’ house, with its tasteful matching furniture, it was hard to believe that anyone ever yelled, much less threw people through screen doors.

“Go on,” she said quietly. “What did he do then?”

I tried to focus on my story and ignore the feeling of her hand on my back, warm against the thin cotton of my T-shirt. She upset my equilibrium so much that I was afraid I might pitch forward onto the floor. The only thing that stopped me was the idea that she might think I was upset about fighting with Hunter. He’d gotten more physically aggressive as I’d gotten older, wrestling with me, pushing me around. I wasn’t afraid of him. I was eight inches taller and outweighed him by at least twenty pounds, so I could more than hold my own. The thing that bothered me about these battles was the rage I felt afterward. I often felt as if I’d stepped outside myself and become someone else. I was afraid that he’d go too far one day, and I’d bury an axe in his thick skull.

I said, “He sat there for a while, moaning. Then he said that as soon as he got up, he was going to come inside and kill me. So I slammed the back door in his face and locked it. Your parents must have heard the yelling.”

She shook her head. “No witnesses, I’m afraid. My folks are at the beach this weekend. They don’t even know I’m home. I told them I wasn’t coming back until Monday. I thought it might be nice to spend some time by myself.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, standing up. “I didn’t mean to just pounce on you as soon as you arrived. When I saw your car drive by, I . . .”

She put both of her arms around me and pulled me back down, bringing her chin to rest on my shoulder. I caught sight of us then in the dresser mirror—me, my face red and my pulse racing, and Susan with her eyes shut, perfectly comfortable. She filled my view like a solar eclipse.

“I wanted to see you,” she said. “When I said alone, I meant I wanted to spend some time at home without my parents. You’re an only child. You must know what it’s like. Your mother must drive you as crazy as mine drives me. I mean, I love her and everything, but whenever I come home, it’s like I’m like her long-lost best friend. She won’t let me out of her sight.”

I nodded, though my own situation was quite different. I was a second-generation only child on both my father’s and my mother’s side. It was a disability I considered about as bad as being the offspring of first cousins. They both treated me as if I were a baby sister that had been sprung on them by surprise. My father, when he wasn’t being jealous and hostile, acted as if we were bowling buddies, telling me off-color jokes and pointing out women he found attractive. My mother was the more parental of the two, but living with my grandparents made it hard for her to assert her authority. Though she set curfews and limits on my behavior, I often got the feeling that we were partners, united in opposition first to Eddie and then to my grandfather.

“So,” Susan went on, “you locked him out, and he sat on the ground and bellowed. What did you do, call the police?”

“Don’t make me laugh. Nana was having a fit about what the neighbors might think, so she let him back in. I locked myself in the bedroom, and he spent the next three hours pacing up and down the hall, threatening to beat the door down.” Susan, who still had her chin on my shoulder, tightened her arms around my waist. I twisted until she was forced to loosen her grasp.

“Don’t worry,” I said lightly. “He started drinking again and passed out, but not before playing a long serenade on the Wurlitzer. Some Lawrence Welk sort of thing. I think it was Harbor Lights.”

I sang a few bars until she laughed, which forced her to take her chin off my shoulder. She kept her arms around my waist.

“I shouldn’t laugh,” she said. “It’s really not funny. Now, changing the subject, have you mailed your applications?”

“Yeah. UNC and N. C. State.”

“You’ll get into UNC,” she announced. “No thanks to your . . .”

“No thanks to my what?”

“Nothing.”

“You were going to say no thanks to my family. They don’t want me to go to college.”

“Of course they do,” she said, avoiding my gaze. “I’m sure your family’s very proud of you.”

I shook my head. “No, your family is proud of you. Your dad couldn’t be happier that you’re off studying to be a doctor. My family thinks I’m a freak. Nana made me take typing this semester so I’ll have something to fall back on.”

Susan stretched her arms above her head and shifted on the bed so that she was leaning against the wall behind us. “What does your mother say about you going to college?”

“My mother says I should do what I like. If I want to go to college, that’s fine with her.”

“There you go then,” she replied, as if everything were settled.

“She also says that two of the women in her office have college degrees, and they’re doing the same job she does. She thinks it’s a big waste of money.”

“She won’t be paying for it,” Susan said sharply. “You’ve sent in your financial aid forms, haven’t you?”

“Of course. I got my mother to do her taxes early so I could send all that stuff off last month. But look, Susan, will they give me enough to go? What if it’s only half of what I actually need?”

“They won’t do that,” she replied. “They’ll come up with some combination of grants and loans, and it will be enough. If you need spending money, you can get a part-time job. There are plenty of student jobs on campus. You’re not getting out of this, Poppy. Next fall, you’re coming to UNC with me.”

“That’s what I want.”

She smiled. “Good. My work here is done.” She glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. “Do you want to hang out here while I’m gone? You can spend the night.”