Chapter 11: Room 12

We go at nine the next morning, because you can't sneak into a nursing home at midnight but you can absolutely walk in during visiting hours with a bunch of daffodils. Damien wears a hoodie and a baseball cap and looks so wrong doing it that I almost laugh. Grandma Rose is by the window. She's small now. She has the yellow blanket. "Ava," she says, "you've cut your hair," which I haven't, and then, to Damien, "You're too skinny. Sit down. Is this the boy?" "Grandma—" "He's the boy." She...