Every night, without fail, Rhidian Reynolds prays for his gran. He prays for a cure for her arthritis and diabetes; he prays she will be happy in the converted dining room; he prays for her border collie, Libby May, in Swansea Dogs Home.
But one night—when he is eleven and three quarters—he forgets.
They find gran’s body the following morning after breakfast. Rhidian is in his bedroom memorizing the to-do list in his Ledger of Achievements, when he hears his sister Rachel yelling. Her typically stretched sulky vowels have an odd shrunken quality. Rhidian marks the page in the Ledger and heads downstairs.
The door to the dining room is ajar, framing his mother in profile, who is sitting on the Z-bed clutching a pile of pills. Gran is asleep in the bed, her hand bent across his mother’s t
