Mr. Fenn, the counselor, called Josie into his office the next afternoon. He had a bowl of peppermints and a poster of a kitten hanging off a branch. He asked her how things were at home, and she said fine. He asked her how her grandpa was doing, and she said fine. He asked her if she'd been the one to sign the field trip form, and she looked at the kitten for a while and didn't say anything at all. He was kind about it. That made it worse.
Renata Ochoa came on a Thursday.
She drove up from Elko in a state-plate Ford with a crack across the windshield and a car seat in the back, and she was about forty, with reading glasses on a beaded chain and a lanyard that said DIVISION OF CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES – RURAL REGION, and she looked like somebody who hadn't had a full night's sleep since the Obama administration. Josie had the house spotless. She'd ironed Aitona's blue shirt. She'd coached him in the morning, over and over, the way you'd practice a spelling list: It's 2026. Josie's twelve. She's in seventh grade. Kristin's in Spokane.
For fifteen minutes it worked. Aitona sat very straight in his recliner and told Ms. Ochoa that his granddaughter was twelve and was a wonderful student, the best in her class with her hands, better than he'd been at her age. He told her about the sheep camp above Jiggs. He told her about Basque bread and the right way to make it, in a hole in the ground, with coals. Ms. Ochoa listened and took notes and smiled at the right times, and Josie, sitting on the arm of the couch, thought: We're going to make it.
Then her grandfather leaned forward, put his hand on Ms. Ochoa's knee very kindly, and said, "Now, Kristin, honey, don't you worry. Your little girl's safe with me. You go get yourself well."
The room went quiet. On the television, which Josie had forgotten to turn off, someone was winning a car.
Ms. Ochoa didn't pull her knee away. She patted Aitona's hand, and said, "Thank you, Mr. Etcheverry, I know she is," and when she looked at Josie over her reading glasses, there was nothing in her face like triumph. It was worse than that. It was sorrow.
On the porch, she gave Josie a business card.
"I'm not taking anybody anywhere today," she said. "I want you to hear that. But I have to open an assessment, and I have to come back, and I'm going to need to talk to some doctors about your grandpa. Is there any other family? Anyone at all?"
"No."
"Your mom?"
"I don't know where she is."
Ms. Ochoa nodded, like that was the answer she'd expected and she'd heard it a hundred times. "You've been doing this by yourself a long time," she said, "haven't you."