Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand

like Avery. Gretchen must have gotten her frizzy dark hair from her father. Dad told me Gretchen’s father died when Gretchen was very young. Stick kept his name and never remarried.
    (If anyone around here should feel sad, and heavy, and unable to get up and brush her teeth before bed, it should be Gretchen, or Stick.)
    (Not me.)
    (So get it together, Finley.)
    â€œHere, Finley.” Grandma hands me an old cloth. “Start wiping down those bottom cabinets, please. I’d like to get this done quickly so I can be at the clinic by one o’clock.”
    â€œClinic?”
    Grandma waves a hand. “Just something I do when I have the time.”
    â€œYour grandma’s being modest.” Stick loops her arm through Grandma’s. “She volunteers at the clinic, works the front desk. Whenever they need her, she drops everything and goes. And she organizes this back-to-school program at the Y, where they stuff backpacks full of school supplies for kids who need them. You know, so their parents don’t have to worry about spending money on notebooks and pens and such. Your grandma, Fin.” Stick beams at me. “She’s the best, in case you didn’t know.”
    Stick plants a sweaty kiss on Grandma’s cheek, and Grandma’s nose wrinkles. I try not to laugh.
    â€œIt keeps me from getting bored around here in this old house, is all,” Grandma says crisply. “Now get to cleaning, you two.”
    Stick flips on the radio. “Gretchen has been talking about you nonstop all week, Finley,” she tells me while she sweeps. She stops to gulp down some of her shake. “She couldn’t wait to come back—and for once it had nothing to do with Grandma’s cooking.”
    I wait for Grandma to laugh, but she’s elbow deep in asoapy sink, scrubbing hard at a pan that looks perfectly clean to me.
    â€œI’m just so excited you two have hit it off,” Stick continues. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Gretchen so excited about playing outside. Trees? And mud? Come on. Usually it’s nothing but video games and texting her friends. I should never have gotten her a phone so young. But all her friends had them, so if I didn’t get her one, she’d be constantly whining about it. Here.” Stick holds out her shake. “Wanna try?”
    Stick looks so hopeful that I take a sip. It tastes like a combination of gritty cake and liquid metal. I fight not to make a face.
    Stick bursts out laughing. “Not for you, huh, babycakes?” She kisses my forehead and ruffles my hair. “Don’t worry, I still like you.”
    I smile up at Stick. Her short hair pokes up behind her headband. “You do?”
    â€œOf course! You’re my coolest niece by far.”
    â€œEven cooler than Avery?”
    Stick winks at me. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
    â€œYou were playing outside?” Grandma has stopped scrubbing to look at me.
    It takes me a minute to remember what we were talking about—the Everwood. Playing outside with Gretchen.
    I wait for Stick to say something, but suddenly she seems to be very interested in sweeping.
    â€œUm. Yeah?”
    â€œYes,” Grandma says.
    â€œI mean . . . yes. It’s no big deal. We were just messing around.”
    â€œDoing what, exactly? And where?”
    Stick stops sweeping. “Mom, come on. They’re just having fun.”
    â€œAmelia, I asked Finley, not you.”
    â€œWe talked. Hung out in the pit.” My mind ping-pongs around, searching for a reason why Grandma would be acting this way. Playing outside seems like a normal thing to do, but I get the sense that isn’t true at Hart House.
    Then it hits me:
    Maybe Grandma knows about what Gretchen and I found: the child’s shoe, the twisted bicycle. The knife.
    Maybe she knows about something that happened in the Everwood.
    â€œI don’t want you girls playing