On Saturdays, Uncle Toby arrived early because he knew I’d be hungry.

During this past school year, he came all the way to Newton even though he had to drive in from his basement apartment in Somerville every morning to give me breakfast and bring me to school before heading back out to the lumberyard. He always had a ham and egg sandwich or a couple of cold pancakes or, if I was really lucky, maybe a packet of Hostess Twinkies. After school, he always had something for me from the pizza place: a slice of pepperoni, a wedge of baklava, half an Italian sub. I never asked him how it felt having to drive back and forth every day. But I was grateful.

Now that school was out for the summer, Mother said we only needed him once a week with groceries. Uncle Toby said he’d rather keep coming twice a day just like he’d been doing, but Mother said, “No thank you, we’ll be just fine. You don’t need to be driving so much, day after day. Doesn’t the lumberyard pay by the hour? You need to work, Toby. And besides, it’s time for me and June Bug to try and make it on our own now.”

As soon as we heard Uncle Toby’s truck rattle into our driveway, my own mother, Angela Jordan, who once played Bach suites to a packed audience of sneezing strangers without even batting an eyelash, now pulled the blanket over her head and stewed in her own sweat.

According to Mother, body odor was okay because it came from the inside. It was the germs from the outside that could kill us: surfaces that were touched or sneezed on by strangers. It was the toilet seats and doorknobs and hands and mouths of strangers that could devour us and spit out our bones.

I knew that to Mother, Uncle Toby was still a stranger even though he was Daddy’s younger brother, and even though he was born right here in this very house, and even though he said he loved us so much, it made him want to get down on his knees and pray, which was really something because Uncle Toby did not believe in God.

I careened down the stairs, whooping like a crazy bird to meet my favorite man alive, two steps at a time, vaulting over the carved banister, leaving the scent of Mother’s skin behind me like a fading dream.

“June Bug!” Uncle Toby called from the kitchen in a voice that sounded like Thanksgiving. “Where’s my little mongoose? Hope she didn’t chew off her own tail.”

All at once, the house was filled with the wondrous sound of paper grocery bags, of footsteps from the door to the long, empty table, of leather work boots clomping dirt and germs and forbidden outside-things onto the floor of the kitchen, filling me with a happiness that spread through my veins like helium, making me feel like I could lift to the ceiling and fly.

“June Bug? Where are you?” he called out, pretending to search for me even when I stopped an inch away from him. I stepped on both his boots with my bare feet, and he waltzed me around the kitchen like a marionette.

When the dancing stopped, I watched him put the food away, each item emerging from the grocery bag like a rabbit from a magician’s hat, food I would prepare myself that week without Mother’s help: cold cuts and chocolate pudding, cheddar cheese and Popsicles, hot dogs and cans of chicken soup, yogurt and macaroni, peanut butter and Wonder Bread, purple grape juice (the kind that made your lips pucker), strawberries, and grapes and chocolate chip cookies.

He made me a snack plate so I wouldn’t be too hungry watching him put the food away — a sampler of different treats: a cookie, a hunk of cheese, a bunch of grapes, three slices of roast beef, a piece of white bread smeared with peanut butter.

I wolfed it down.

Uncle Toby sat next to me and rubbed my back while I ate, petting my shoulders and pushing my hair back behind my ears.

“Easy there,” he said. “Not all at once. Give it a chance to go down.”

Mother’s thin voice came from the blankets upstairs. “Hi, Toby,” she called. “You almost finished down there? You’ve been here a long time, and I think you’d better get going now. We don’t want to keep you. Thank you for coming. See you next week.”

“Hold your horses,” Uncle Toby called up the stairs. “Why don’t you come down and join us, Angela? Or I could bring something up to you if you want. You eating anything these days, or are you living on air and eighth notes?”

We heard Mother’s voice try to laugh. She would have lived on air and eighth notes if it had been possible, but as it was, she had to have actual food every now and then. Just enough to keep her alive.

Uncle Toby picked up my wrist between two fingers and frowned. “You’re looking like you could use a little meat on your bones too, June Bug,” Uncle Toby told me quietly so Mother couldn’t hear. “Your daddy would be mad at me if he knew I was letting you get skinny. Maybe I should start coming over more often. Would you like that? Bet you get lonely sometimes now that school’s out.”

There was no way on earth he could know the truth of his words. There was no way he could know how incomplete the word lonely could be when it stood back-to-back with loneliness, or how hungry a girl could get for so much more than food.

“You know, I miss spending time in this big old house. Your daddy and I had lots of fun running around this kitchen, making your poor grandma crazy. How about if I start coming twice a week?”

“I would like that,” I told him simply, because I had no words for the rest of what was true.

“Angie?” called Uncle Toby up the stairs. “Next time, I’m coming up there with a sandwich. What kind do you like? Salami? Liverwurst?”

There was no answer.

“You better go,” I told him. “We’ll be fine.”

“You sure?” Uncle Toby put his hands on either side of my face and looked into my eyes, which everyone said were so much like Daddy’s. “What are you doing with yourself during the day now that school’s out? You staying in this house all the time with your mom?”

“No,” I said, smiling. “I have a new friend.”

“A friend?”

Suddenly, a story about Ziggy Karlo and Nana Jean came pouring out of my mouth, so sweet to say, so sweet to hear, that I almost believed the lies as soon as the first syllables passed through my lips. The lies were almost like a wish, and as soon as I began, I knew I’d have to make it come true.

“We play all the time,” I said, feeling my eyes widen. “And I eat lunch and dinner at his house most days. His nana makes us food. Anything we want. Lasagna. Ravioli. She’s such a good cook, Uncle Toby. And she’s really nice. She helps take care of me. And sometimes, when Mother isn’t feeling good, I sleep in their spare room, and she tucks me in and kisses me good night, and she checks on me three times during the night to make sure I’m okay.”

Uncle Toby wrapped his arms around me. “Oh, June Bug,” he said, sighing. “That’s wonderful news. Nana Jean is exactly what you need right now.”

I hugged him and he pulled me close so I could feel his beard scratch my cheeks.

“You don’t have to worry, Uncle Toby,” I said, still warm from my wish. “Everything is going to be okay.”