He does not tell his mother. From this time on, he speaks to her as little as possible. She tries at first to engage him in conversation; then she gets angry. She doesn’t have time for this nonsense, this sulking without a reason when she’s knocking herself out to provide for him. He finds a pie server in a bottom drawer, digs a hole in the junkyard, and buries the stiff kitten-body though he can hardly bear to touch it. He can’t eat anything the rest of the day or the next, but no one notices because he fixes his own meals. At night he lies in bed, going over the moment when he had last wedged the stick in the freezer door. How could it have fallen out? Had he been in a hurry? Had he been careless? Had someone followed him and pulled the stick out on purpose? Who would do something like that? There are no answers, and perhaps that’s why the questions keep replaying in his head. Sometimes when people are talking to him, the questions come back, very loud, and he is unable to hear anything else. He gets in trouble at school for this; a couple of his teachers wonder if he’s mentally handicapped. But they’re overworked; since he doesn’t cause trouble like the others, they let him be. At home he gets clouted on the head when he blanks out while Marvin is talking to him. Once his mother sees this and it leads to a huge fight between her and Marvin. Earlier, such a development would have pleased the boy. Now he hardly notices.

The only time he can forget the feel of the kitten’s fur under his palm, or the way it butted its head against his shins, is when he’s doing math. So he does more and more of it, asking his teacher for extra worksheets that he brings home, fractions and decimals, and word problems about Aunt Anna who’s driving from Boston to Philadelphia at a certain speed, or a bathtub where the stopper doesn’t quite fit, and how long would it take to fill. The words transform themselves into numbers that line up like acrobats, numbers that can be trusted to perform the way they’re supposed to. He begins to understand their nature. They are ancient and immortal, not frail and easily broken. As long as he offers them his full attention, they will never abandon him. They sing their answers to him, and the inside of his head fills with light as he writes them down.

THERE HAD BEEN A NAKEDNESS ABOUT MR. PRITCHETT’S STORY, the feeling of a wound not yet healed. Perhaps that was why no one said anything, Uma thought. Or were they hoarding energy and oxygen for their own tales?

The noise of water had grown louder, more uneven, a chug-chug followed by a silence, then a gurgling, swallowing noise. Uma tried to visualize what might be happening. Cameron told them to roll up their pants legs or hitch up their skirts and remove their shoes and socks before getting off their chairs.

“Once you’ve taken off your socks, you need to put your shoes back on so you don’t cut your feet on broken glass. Keep your socks in your pocket, along with these.” He handed out pieces of blue cloth, the last bits of Malathi’s sari. “We have to move to the employees area and sit on the tables there. The ceiling at this end of the room is sagging more than before.” They stared up at the hole that yawned above. In the near blackness, Uma couldn’t tell how much worse it really was. “Use the cloth to wipe your feet before wearing your socks again,” Cameron said. “Stay as dry as you can so you don’t get chilled.”

Everyone did as Cameron instructed. Maybe they were grateful for these small, concrete acts that they could successfully perform. When Uma pulled off her socks with an awkward hand, she almost dropped one. Lunging to grab it, she hit her broken wrist against the chair. Pain shot through her and she cursed out loud. Standing, she saw that the water reached above her ankles, and the inevitability of that rising, more than the pain and the cold, made her want to cry. The group shuffled to their new location and pushed the tables around until they formed a triangle with gaps. Lily helped Jiang, who was holding her arm out stiffly, onto a table, and beckoned to Tariq to join them. Uma climbed onto the second table. Cameron wiped her feet for her and pulled her socks back on. Uma had expected Mrs. Pritchett to join them, but the older woman went to the third table, where her husband was sitting. Uma wondered if his story made her do this. Mrs. Pritchett perched on the edge, leaving the center spot for Mangalam.

Uma moved closer to Cameron to make room for Malathi, who was climbing onto their table. Three to a tabletop was a snug fit. But it would keep them warmer. Cameron was asking if anyone suffered from diabetes. No one confessed to it because Mangalam was holding a big plastic bag filled with sugar packets. When Cameron nodded, Mangalam passed the bag around. Uma took three packets. Greedily, she tore open the corner of one with her teeth and poured some onto her tongue. She was looking forward to the taste, but it was overly sweet and made her want to throw up. The unfairness of this made her want to cry.

Everything was making her want to cry. No matter what her own problems were, Mr. Pritchett’s mother should have taken better care of her son. And why did the boy love her so, in spite of everything? Uma thought of her own mother, who had watched out for her with a hawk-eyed vigilance that she had ungraciously tolerated through childhood and rejected as a teenager. Did one always take for granted what came easily and long for what was impossible?

Cameron disappeared into the storage area, returning with a small stack of disposable tablecloths. He divided them among the three groups, to use as communal blankets. They weren’t very warm, not even with two or three of them layered atop each other. But there was something comforting, Uma thought, something childlike and innocent, about sharing them.

HALFWAY THROUGH MR. PRITCHETT’S STORY, MRS. PRITCHETT had been broadsided by a memory. Years back, when she first realized they weren’t going to have children, she had asked her husband for a dog. He had dragged his feet, pointing out that it would mess up their beautiful new carpet. He didn’t have time to help her take care of it. And what would they do with it when they traveled? But she had begged and begged because she was lonely. Finally he had given in to her entreaties and taken her to the animal shelter.

A few minutes into their visit, before Mrs. Pritchett had taken a single dog out of its cage, Mr. Pritchett had complained of shortness of breath. He had rushed out of the building, and when she followed, concerned, she found him inside their Mercedes, bent over the steering wheel. His hands, when she had grabbed them, had been clammy.

She had guessed the problem to be an allergy, a severe one. To get to the dogs, they’d walked through a room filled with cat cages. Maybe that had set it off. Very convenient! a part of her had thought angrily. Then, ashamed of her selfishness, she had busied herself with rolling down the windows and getting him water. She had put away this disappointment like many others and had busied herself with the garden, the golf lessons he wanted her to take so they could join the local club, and the dinner parties he loved for her to throw. Now she was filled with sorrow and anger: sorrow for the boy he had been and anger because he had not ever trusted her with the truth.

ENTANGLED IN THEIR THOUGHTS, LOST IN THE HYPNOTIC GURGLE of water, they were startled when Lily said, “I’m glad you had your math, Mr. Pritchett. It made you special when everyone thought you weren’t good enough.” She glanced at Cameron. “Can I tell my story?”

“Hold on a little longer,” he said. He peered at the faces around him, checking for responses.

Uma wanted to say something about the treacherous nature of memory, how one painful event can overpower the many good experiences that came before. But a dangerous lethargy arising from cold and hunger prevented her from speaking. It was imperative that someone start telling a story before the feeling overpowered them all.