2,178,309.

3,524,578.

5,702,887.

9,227,465.

14,930,352.

24,157,817.

39,088,169.

My head goes fuzzy. I imagine the Valium doing its work inside me, binding to the receptors in my brain. I can feel myself sliding, sliding, off to the gray space. To sleep.

I don’t dream about anything at all.

11 March

Here’s my last real memory of Patrick Murphy: the day I caught Ty and his friends smoking in the playhouse.

They were 12.

Oh, yeah. They were busted big time.

Building stuff was one of Dad’s temporary hobbies when I was about 9. It started when he decided to construct a custom doghouse for our dog, Sunny. He spent about two weeks on it in careful construction, nailing and sanding and laying real roof tiles on the top to keep the weather out. He even painted it to match our house: green, with white trim.

Sunny hated it. She much preferred the family-room sofa.

It didn’t matter. Dad was so pleased with how the doghouse turned out that he decided to try his hand at something bigger. A playhouse. He went to Toys “R” Us to study the pictures of the thousand-dollar playhouses they sold and came home with a solemn promise to Ty and me that he would build us the best playhouse this side of the Mississippi—not some roughshod half-plastic monstrosity that would only look good for a summer or two, he said. Something solid.

Something that would last.

He enlisted the help of Aunt Jessica, who’s an architect in Missouri. She drew up the blueprints for a 500-square-foot, one-and-a-half-story playhouse, which was basically a square little room with a ladder and a loft.

Dad bought the materials. He laid a set of pretreated railroad ties as the foundation for the structure, in case we ever sold our house and wanted to move the playhouse, he said. He dug a 30-foot-long trench between the house and the far corner of the backyard, so he could run electricity to our playhouse. So we could have lights.

It was a big freaking deal.

Dad built the frame first, then the roof. He put real insulation in the walls, to keep it warm in the winter and cool in summer. Ty and I wrote our names on the inside of one wall before Dad sealed it up with drywall and painted. He installed real glass windows that opened and closed, complete with screens to keep the bugs out, and a real full-sized front door with a little window in it. Then he set down a layer of cheap black-and-white-checkered linoleum on the main floor, and green carpet in the loft. The outside he painted to match our house, too. Green with white trim. Topped off with a tiny front porch with a porch light and everything.

Mom sewed some curtains for the windows. She bought a large play kitchen set from a garage sale in Lincoln: a toy refrigerator, stove, and sink, with storage where I could keep my food play dough molds, my plastic dishes and cups, and my tea set. She even splurged on a child-sized wooden table and chairs.

Suddenly all the neighborhood kids wanted to come to our house to play.

Sadie and I practically lived in the playhouse from ages 9 to 12, our sleeping bags always ready to roll out in the loft. The green carpet became grass for our My Little Ponies and Barbie’s front lawn, and the light blue walls were the sky, and we stuck glow-in-the-dark stars to the sloped ceiling.

It was our own private world.

I feel I must guiltily confess that it wasn’t Ty’s own private world, not until Sadie and I lost interest, which took a few years. Then, after dollies and Barbies and playing at being grown-ups lost their sparkle, the playhouse passed to Ty.

So. That time with Patrick. Mom sent me out to the playhouse to bring Ty, Damian, and Patrick in for dinner. I knew there was something going down the minute I came through the door and heard all this scrambling up in the loft.

I smelled the cigarettes right away. I mean, they hadn’t even opened the windows.

“Hey, you guys,” I said cheerfully. “What are you doing?”

I climbed halfway up the ladder and stuck my head into the loft. The boys all looked at me with wide, innocent eyes.

“Nothing,” Ty said. He gestured to Dad’s old boom box, which was playing “Stairway to Heaven.” “We’re just chilling.”

I looked at Damian and Patrick. Damian looked the same as he does now: thin and birdlike, his clothes hanging off him in various shades of muted colors, gray eyes wary like any second he expected somebody to attack him. Patrick was one of those kids who had orange hair like a sweet potato and white, white skin with freckles all over. His face was bright red.

“Are you okay, Patrick?” I asked.

He started coughing. The minute he opened his mouth a puff of cigarette smoke came out. He coughed and coughed and coughed.

I looked down for a minute. “Hmm,” I said. Sigh. “Okay, boys. Hand them over.”

Ty’s face was a little green. He started to say, “Hand what over?” but I gave him a look that said he didn’t want to mess with me. Ty brought his hands out from behind his back and produced their hastily stubbed-out cigarettes. They’d put them out on a piece of my porcelain tea set, the thoughtful little sweethearts.

At least it’s not pot, I thought. I stared at the plate, then rolled my eyes. “Where’s the rest?”

“The rest?” squeaked Damian.

“The pack. Where is it?”

They exchanged glances and then decided there was no getting past me. Ty opened up the My Little Pony Dream Castle, where he’d stuffed the pack of Virginia Slims.

I choked back a laugh. “Where did you get these?”