Chapter 16: Block Capitals

Marguerite opened the closet door herself.

She did it slowly, with two fingers, and looked at me between a navy blazer and a camel coat.

"Stevie, dear," she said. "Are you lost?"

Behind her, the nurse stood with her clipboard against her chest.

Gus sat in the middle of the room and did not look away from me for a second.

"Warner," Marguerite said without turning her head. "Did you let her in?"

I looked at him.

He was standing very straight beside his grandfather's chair, and the whole room waited on one answer.

"No, Mother," Warner said.

I heard the words, and they did not seem real.

"I caught her in the kitchen. She'd got past the cook. I was bringing her upstairs to put her out myself."

"Grandfather," I said.

Gus's lips moved. "Boy."

Warner looked at the floor.

"You see how it is," Marguerite said to me kindly. "He's loyal. It's a quality."

I stepped out of the closet and crossed to the tray table by Gus's chair, where a pen lay beside his water glass.

Marguerite watched me do it with real interest.

I took the pen and a paper napkin and held them out to her.

"Write my father's name for me," I said. "Frank Marrin."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Just his name. Here, with Warner watching."

Marguerite smiled, took the pen and wrote on the napkin in her sharp upright hand.

Frank Marrin, in cursive, with a flourish.

"There," she said. "Anyone can write a name."

"In block capitals, as it's written on the note."

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