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KEENE

“D id you remember to put underwear on, Keene dear?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Margaret.” My grandma Dugger—aka, Nana—threw up her hands in disgust before I could answer the question, and she sent my grandma Laterman—Gram—a deep scowl. “Could you be any crasser to the poor boy?”

Pinching her lips tightly, Gram lifted her eyebrows right back at Nana and slapped her hands to her hips as she sniffed. “Well, he never remembers to wear any. Just how polished and refined would he appear, running around with the end of his willy hanging out the hem of his shorts?”

I cringed, thinking Gram was seriously overestimating the size of my willy, and besides, I was wearing jeans.

But neither woman seemed to care about that.

Facing off on the front porch of Nana and Grandpa Dugger’s house, the two grandmothers scowled each other down as if facing off for a WWE match.

“And how dare you talk to me about impropriety?” Gram ranted on. “If you’d raised your son to be in any way an honorable man, we wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place. Where is that no-account scoundrel, anyhow? Doesn’t he know his boy’s having a big day?”

Worried my dad might actually show up, I glanced down the block both ways, hoping I didn’t see his battered Ford bumbling up the street.

When he didn’t appear, I exhaled in relief and returned my attention to the grandmas just as Nana drew herself up stiffly and said, “He’s busy.”

“Oh yeah?” Gram shot back. “Busy whoring? Or busy drinking?”

From there, the two women really lit into each other, flinging insults like monkeys flung turds in a zoo.

Stuck between them, I shifted my feet anxiously because it was time to go.

“Psst,” someone hissed from behind me, and I glanced over to see my grandpas camped out on the porch swing together as if it were a fine, breezy summer day and they were getting ready to enjoy a big, cold glass of sweet tea.

When Grandpa—my grandfather on the Dugger side—patted the free space between them, I slumped over and plopped down.

I guess we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Grandpa Laterman—or who I called Pop-Pop—ruffled my hair in greeting. “So are you wearing underpants or not?”

I sighed. “Yes, sir.”

“Good boy,” Grandpa answered and pulled an orange Life Savers from his pocket for me to suck on.

Swinging my feet, I unwrapped the candy and popped it into my mouth as the three of us waited for the two ladies to finish their spat.

I alternated living with both sets of grandparents—one seven-day stretch with one and the next seven days with the other. And every time one pair dropped me off at the other’s house, the two grandmas went at each other’s throats like a pair of tom cats. But today we had somewhere to be.

“Are we gonna be late?” I finally asked, glancing up at Pop-Pop.

“Nah,” he answered with an easy smile as he bumped his elbow into mine and winked like he always did when he had a secret to share. “We told the ladies it started half an hour earlier than it really does.”

“Still a genius idea, Donny,” Grandpa told Pop-Pop.

“Thanks, Steve,” Pop-Pop replied with a proud smile.

My two grandfathers always got along.

“Why do you and Donny get to take him to his first day at the center, anyway?” Nana demanded.

The two grandmothers rarely hit it off.

“Because, Cynthia ,” Gram clapped back. “You got to give him your surname; it’s our turn to get what we want.”

“Well, that’s bull. You two get to do twice as much with him as Steve and I do.”

“Because we’re his maternal grandparents.”

“What in the world has that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing, I guess, except for the fact our daughter carried him inside her for nine whole months before raising him by herself for another nine years. And your good-for-nothing son barely sees him twice a year, if that. He wasn’t even present for poor Keene’s birth!”

“Again! How does that have anything to do with?—?”

“Apologies, ladies,” Grandpa cut in mildly.

On the other side of me, Pop-Pop set his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet with a great, heaving sigh. “Don’t you believe we best be getting on before we miss the whole darned meetin’?”

“Oh!” Nana waved her hands in a frenzy and focused on me as I stood up along with the men. “That’s right. You better go. Give your nana some sweetness now, honey. You hear?”

When she opened her arms to me, I darted forward, never one to turn down a grandma hug. Pillowy and soft, Nana always smelled like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

“Aww. Isn’t he just the sweetest child?” Gram cooed, sifting her fingers through my hair as the first grandma pulled away so the second could take her turn.

Gram was bonier, but she always rubbed my back or hair whenever she hugged me, and the hint of fresh flowers wafted off her, making me feel like I was in a garden.

When the two grandmas did agree on something, it was how much they adored me.

After her hug, Gram pressed a hand to my back and started to lead me off the Duggers’ porch. “We’ll have him back next Saturday, on schedule,” she told Nana with a friendly wave and a smile she hadn’t had two seconds earlier when she’d said Nana was a frog-faced ninny.

“I know you will,” Nana answered, also forgetting their differences as she looked at me.

Smiling weepily, she pulled her hands up to her heart and moved closer to Grandpa as the two of them watched me leave down the front walk.

“Have fun, sweetie,” she told me, lifting up on her toes to wave when I glanced back. “Make friends.”

Next to her, Grandpa rolled his eyes. “He’s going to grief counseling, Cyn, not summer camp.”

“I know; I just—Oh! Shut up.”

Turning back as I reached the Latermans’ sedan, I climbed into the back seat where Pop-Pop was holding the door open for me. Once I was seated, he shut me in, and I waved out the window at the Duggers.

They waved back immediately.

In the front seat, my other set of grandparents were quietly debating over the best route to take to get to the center.

I had no idea what grief counseling was supposed to be like. I knew grief was when you were sad and counseling was when you needed help, but I didn’t think I needed any help with being sad.

I was still eager to attend, though, because I’d talked my best friend into enrolling with me. And I wanted to hang out with him something fierce.

“Do you think Alec’s already there?” I asked the two adults up front.

Alec had lost his father five months ago.

He hadn’t lived with his dad—just like I’d never lived with mine—so he wasn’t as sad about his loss as I was about losing my mom. But he’d lost someone, so that made him eligible to go. And since he was gonna be there, I didn’t mind going neither.

Actually, I couldn’t wait to get there.

“I’m not sure he’s going to make it at all, honey,” Gram informed me with some regret in her voice. “His mom said he was still deciding.”

“Still deciding ?” I squawked.

What was there to decide? He had to go. If all four of my grandparents were making me do this, then Alec had to do it too. That’s all there was to it.

Suddenly, I wasn’t so eager after all.

Dread pooled in my belly.

What if Alec wasn’t there? What was I supposed to do then?

As soon as we arrived and Pop-Pop stopped the car, I popped out in a rush, needing to know if my friend was around or not.

I craned my neck, searching the parking lot for his familiar brown curls. Except I didn’t see him anywhere.

Dang it. He better show up.

There were a lot of other people around—kids and adults alike—so it was possible he was just jumbled in with the mix, and I’d meet up with him soon enough. But I wasn’t fond of this not-knowing nonsense.

I darted forward, only to be forced to slow down when Gram and Pop-Pop called me back because they couldn’t keep up. It boggled my mind just how slow grandparents could be.

Inside the center, we waited in this long line to check in . I guess it was the center’s first day open, and every youngster here needing grieving lessons was as new to this as I was. When I glanced around, more than one kid was crying.

Not really liking that, I inched closer to Gram, beginning to wonder just what we were supposed to do here.

She immediately set a hand on my hair to comfort me, but then—before I was ready for her to go—this adult dude took me away from both her and Pop-Pop. I barely got time to wave goodbye before I was ushered into another huge room full of noise and commotion.

The man who’d brought me in bent down to point past my arm toward a cluster of seats that had been set up in a circle, where it looked like we might play musical chairs.

“Over there, kiddo,” he told me with a pat on the back. “That’s going to be your troop today, okay?”

I glanced at the enormous sign in front of the circle labeled Ages 5–9 , and I nodded.

As I approached, I saw four others already seated, but no Alec.

Grumbling under my breath, I frowned at everyone who was in my group but wasn’t my best friend.

One boy looked as if he had to be three or four years old—no way was that runt five—and he couldn’t seem to stop bawling. Two adults hovered around him, trying to comfort him, while a pair of girls sat huddled together, gossiping.

When they saw me approach, they glanced up with wrinkled noses as if I stunk and then they went back to snickering with each other.

I turned my attention to the fourth kid, a girl with brown hair. With her head bent slightly, her long, straight tresses fell into her face and hid half her features.

It reminded me so much of how my mother had always kept her hair that I felt drawn to her, and a second later, I plopped down in the seat beside her.

“Howdy,” I said.

She’d been looking down at her hands and ticking off her fingers as if counting silently in her head.

But at my greeting, she lifted her face and blinked dark brown eyes.