One thing we like to do is play the dead game. I don’t know why we call it a game, there’s no game to it at all, it’s just me on the floor in Marta’s closet in the dark. And then she opens the door and I’m dead. That’s when she’ll say something like, “Oh, no! Brenda’s dead!” And my part is to stay perfectly still for a moment and then jerk my entire body, the point being that I’m dead, but I have rigor mortis. We don’t know what rigor mortis is. We think a dead body jerks into new positions as it’s stiffening up. So that’s what I do, over and over again. I lay still and then I jerk and freeze in the new position, and Marta screams. We do this until we nearly pass out from all the laughing. Then Marta makes me a sandwich. She has to get all the things out, like the toaster, which they keep in a cabinet. And then the peanut butter and jelly and a knife and a cutting board. And a plate, napkin, and glass for milk. She makes me the sandwich and pours me milk and then puts everything away while I eat. Marta’s house is spotless. If I drop a crumb on the floor, Marta wipes it up with a paper towel. There are no dishes in the sink. And all the drapes are open to let in the daylight. I’m eating my sandwich when Mrs. Drummer calls Marta to come talk to her in her bedroom. Marta comes back a few minutes later and says her mom wants to know why I’m always eating at their house, I live right across the street, maybe I could just eat over there from now on. I say, oh, okay. And then I feel like going home. My house isn’t neat as a pin, like Marta’s, but it’s mine. I head to my bedroom and lay down inside the closet and pretend I’m dead, but it doesn’t work without Marta there. It takes two to play the dead game. Fifty-three years later, I hear that Mrs. Drummer has died, and I picture her dead body, jerking and stiffening inside the casket, wearing that coat she was so proud of. “It’s a Robert Leonard,” she’d said, her helmet of hair glistening from her weekly wash and set.