“What did you wish for, Grandpa?”

Grandpa peered over his glasses. It was his sixty-seventh birthday. No adult asked him when he blew out the candles.

Young Tommy did.

The room went silent.

Perhaps they wanted to know but were reluctant to ask.

“I wished for a big kiss from Emily MacArthur next door. The kind that reminds me of my male biology. The kind I gave her last year on her birthday.”

o0o

The handle of the cake knife in Grandpa’s chest had been wiped clean.

Sixty-seven wounds.

The police report said it was self-inflicted.

Grandma smiled.

Emily moved.