What did you do to him? she asked. He hasn’t spoken in three days. Almost a week, he continued looking out the front window at cars driving by. Fords, Chevys, a Dodge, some pickup trucks and old beaten down station wagons hauling garbage in the back, went by on a dimly lit street. He’s back in his room. Go talk to him, she told her husband. I don’t know what you said to him, but it’s had a profound impact on him, he lit a cigarette. You have to smoke so early in the morning?

It’s what I do. I go to bed, I light up. Wake up, I light up. Smoke whenever I damn well feel like it, he coughed.

Right, she nodded her head.

In the cabinet was a bottle of Paddy’s Whiskey. The old man poured himself a glass. It was about half full. The whiskey glistened in the flourescent light. The long bulb overhead in the kitchen flickered. He looked up at it and shook his head. One more thing to fix, he said. This trailer is falling apart. Little by little, things are coming undone. And does he help out? No. He does not. He’s old enough to do some things around here, the grand dad said. Ever since we took him in, he’s been nothing but a problem. Stays out late. Sleeps all day. It’s not what I said to him. He’s just stoned out of his mind all the time. Gone. As if he were on a different planet, he said.

He looks up to you. Always has.

That boy doesn’t look up to anybody. He’s just barely here.

You don’t think his mother leaving him had anything to do with it?

She left all of us. I won’t talk about it. Another druggie. He’s going to follow in her footsteps.

Down the hall, his door opened. A dissheveled kid in his teen years walked up to the kitchen where the old man and grandma were silent. The three looked at each other. The boy pulled the milk from the refrigerator and drank from the jug. Wiped his mouth. Looked at the old man. I am going to end up like her, he said. What that is, we don’t know, but I’ll end up like her, he leaned on the counter. Sooner or later, we all got to die. And that includes you too, old man, he said. That includes you, too.

The kid walked back down the hall and shut the door to his bedroom. The two grandparents looked at each other in disbelief. It was silent for a moment or two. Quiet.

No one’s going to tell me that I’m going to die, the old man said. No one. Who does he think he is? Delivering some sermon half-baked. And it’s not what he said, but the way he said it. Cocky.

He is right. We’re all going to die someday.

I suppose. I suppose.