“It was a short day.”

“It was,” she agreed.

He asked, “Why?”

“Because.” She took a breath and held it deep, golden teeth shining in the dim green light. She was trying to devise a worthy answer, or she was thinking about something else entirely. There was no telling. Then the air leaked out of her, and she attacked the big fort. His soldiers fought as hard as they could, accomplishing nothing. She swept them aside and quickly dismantled what Diamond had built today, dropping blocks into the open box until sharp corners and whole pieces were sitting above the rim.

“He won’t be home tonight,” said Diamond.

Again, she didn’t seem to hear him.

But when he started to repeat himself, Mother interrupted. “Your father is working all night. Yes.”

There was a long pause. Diamond wasn’t certain why, but the evening silence felt wrong. The person on his floor wasn’t her usual self, and that bothered him and fascinated him and he watched her as carefully as he could.

Mother noticed. Her mouth tightened again and the black-brown eyes looked through him. Then with a careful slow and almost angry voice, she said, “I want these little men picked up.”

“The soldiers?”

“Get them off the floor.”

He didn’t complain, but working slowly, he snatched up the figures one by one, studying each face before finding the perfect place for his friends to stand on the various shelves. Every soldier had a name and rank, and they were lumped into smaller units composed of good close friends. Hundreds of battles had been fought and won by this army. These good brave men always stood united against the common foe. No soldier had ever died forever, and they had defeated a host of monsters, including an agreeable Mister Mister. They were his army and the worn faces meant quite a lot to him, and more than once his father had mentioned that nobody had ever played as hard with them as Diamond had.

“When will he come home?” he asked.

Mother was struggling to fit the blocks into their box. “Tomorrow, and maybe in the morning.”

“Oh, good,” he said.

The best soldiers deserved the highest shelf, but Diamond couldn’t reach all the way up. He pulled the stool out from under the bed and got up on his toes, setting twelve warriors in a row, near the edge, each holding a sword or a gun, ready for the next war. Swords were long knives, and he knew about knives. But his parents never talked about guns, which made them mysterious and intriguing.

Old books were propped on that shelf. Diamond pulled one book down and dragged a thumb across the dusty binding, enjoying the rough cool leather and its considerable age. Then he opened the cover, glue cracking with the abuse. Unlike the books for children, the binding was on the side, not on top, and the words ran in straight flat lines across the gray pages. Not one letter was familiar. He knew the full alphabet for people, but he couldn’t even guess how to piece together what was being said here.

“Why can’t I read this?”

Mother was staring at the box overflowing with blocks. What could have been pain started to show in her face, and then pain turned into a sigh. She picked up a triangle and put it down where it had been, reminding him, “I told you. Those books aren’t ours.”

“Then we should give them back.”

“No, they belong to us. But others wrote them.”

“What others?”

She tilted her head and looked at him. Then her face turned away and she said, “No.”

Diamond put the book back and climbed down.

Talking to the blocks, she said, “These won’t fit.”

“They do,” he said.

“I don’t believe you.” A smile came from somewhere. “Show me.”

Diamond pulled off the top few rows, sorting the blocks as he worked. Then he put them back inside their box. This was a puzzle with many answers, but there were many more ways to go wrong. He liked the task. He liked how his mother frowned when he worked his fastest. When he was done, there were little gaps in the top row. “I’m missing a triangle and two cubes,” he said.

“Lost by my father,” she admitted.

These used to be his grandfather’s toys. Mother didn’t play with them when she was little, and that’s why the dead man was blamed.

Diamond shut the lid and went back to rescuing soldiers.

But then she said, “Stop. I don’t care about that, honey.”

He finished with the soldier in his hand before sitting on his bed. What was very peculiar was how quickly it had grown dark, in the world and inside his room. He could see Mother’s face and what she was doing, but the gray-green light was blackening by the moment. Maybe she read his thoughts, or maybe it was chance. Either way, she warned him, “It’s going to be a long, long night.”

Days and nights were the never same twice. He nodded and said, “All right,” and waited to be put under the sheets.

But she didn’t want to leave. She stood and brushed the hair on his head and then ran those same fingers through her stiff gray hair, smiling in an odd way before saying, “Does your pot need to be emptied?”

“No.”

“I should do that anyway.” She looked at the mostly closed door. “You have water and something to eat?”

“Cold crescents and oil,” he said. “And you filled the pitcher.”

She said, “Good.”

He waited.

“What was I going to do?”

“My pot.”

“Yes. How did I forget?”

He wondered that too. But he said nothing, watching her carry the chamber pot out the door. He was nervous but unsure why. A very bad feeling made his breath quicken, and then she returned with the clean pot and everything was better again. His mother drifted through the gloom. Suddenly it was full night, only the faintest glow coming through the five tubes that led into this chamber. Diamond recognized his mother from her shape and the walk and how she still favored the ribs that were lazy about mending.

“Good night, Diamond.”

“Good night.”

She kissed him. Then she touched the top of his head, saying, “Such a marvelous brain.”

He waited.

“Is it inside your head?”

“Is what inside my head?”

“Your brain. That mind of yours.” She bent low, and a tear fell from her face onto his cheek. “Can you tell where your thinking comes from?”

He touched his temple.

“Maybe so,” she said, sounding skeptical.

Now he was crying, and he had no idea why.

“Nine hundred and eighty-three,” she said, laughing too loudly. “That’s a fine wonderful perfect age.”

“Mother?”

“Yes.”

“I want to sleep,” he lied. “I’m tired now.”

“Of course.” She kissed his wet cheeks and his silly little nose and then ran her hand through the curly brown hair that wasn’t like anyone else’s. “Sleep as long as you can, honey. Your father comes home in the morning.”

The night was exceptionally long.

Diamond woke twice to relieve himself in the chamber pot, memory guiding him through the seamless dark. But he got careless once, stumbling and then catching a bare foot on the pot itself. Nothing spilled, but the near-disaster felt like a warning. After finishing, he cleaned himself and went slowly through the blackness with both hands leading. The pitcher was a heavy cool piece of varnished wood, the water warm and delicious. He drank until full and remembered his way back to his bed, crawling under the sheets with Mister Mister, touching the cloth eyes and teeth and those simple two-fingered hands.

There never was a longer night, not in his life. Diamond was scared but not in a bad way. Not so that he wanted to call out for Mother. He was worried but excited and there wasn’t any sleepiness left in him, and for a long while he lay there thinking. His mind jumped from subject to subject. In his head, he played with his toys, but that wasn’t much fun. He replayed everything his mother said before bed, word after word, and he imagined Father arriving in the morning, the sound of his voice and running water in the shower and hearing him walk down the hallway to his son’s room. Then Diamond didn’t feel scared. But sadness ran in his blood, and he tried to decipher where that feeling came from, and that’s what he was doing when he heard the noise.