The shower was out of commission for three weeks. Lowen got increasingly comfortable taking baths next door at Field’s Funeral Home. Invited to come and go as he pleased, he challenged himself to explore a little more of the funeral home on each visit. In the paneled basement, he discovered a large carpeted display room filled with caskets. There was a dark mahogany casket lined with red velvet pillows. Something about it made him want to crawl inside, lay his head on the cushion. What would it feel like? But then he imagined the top slamming down and latching, trapping him inside. He’d bang on the cover repeatedly, hoping to be heard. It reminded him of something his teacher, Mrs. K., had told them.

Apparently, during the Victorian era, corpses had ropes tied to their fingers, head, and toes. These ropes led to a bell on the tombstone. If the body somehow revived, the not-really-deceased person could pull on the ropes and ring the bell. Hopefully a night watchman would hear the bell and the coffin would be dug up. “Had anyone actually been rescued by one of these safety coffins?” Sami had asked, but their teacher didn’t know.

Next to the fancy mahogany casket was a tiny white casket lined with pink satin pillows. No doubt that one was for a baby. What had Abe’s family chosen?

Clem never took another shower at Field’s. He showered at school after soccer practice or at one of his buds’ houses on Sunday mornings. Anneth, like Lowen, had no problem using the downstairs bath at Field’s. On her second visit she met Melinda, the makeup artist whose true calling was helping the deceased look their best. Melinda complimented Anneth on her lip gloss color, and Anneth, in turn, asked Melinda a million questions about foundations, eyeliners, and bronzing powders. Later, with permission, Anneth shared Melinda’s “Makeup Tips for the Living” on her channel. It was, so far, the posting that had received the most views.

At one point, Lowen was tempted to share his explorations at Field’s with his classmates, thinking that they might see him as braver, more capable. But when Lowen told Dylan that he had explored the caskets in the basement, Dylan had said, “I don’t think it’s very respectful what you’re doing. All of us here in Millville have been to Field’s . . . you know . . . to say good-bye.”

Lowen supposed that might be true in a place like Millville. Abe was the first person he knew who had died. All his grandparents were still alive. In fact, he’d never even had a pet that died (mostly because he’d never had a pet, period). But in Millville, everybody knew everybody. Chances are, every kid in Millville had attended a wake or a funeral next door. In fact, from the number of cars parked in front of their home every time there was a service, he suspected that everyone in town attended funerals.

He recalled the deceased woman who was at Field’s that day Dylan surprised him, the one he wouldn’t look at. He tried to imagine her now. Was she wearing the clothes she died in? Probably not. Someone must have picked out her clothes. Someone else (he didn’t like thinking about who) dressed her.

It was weird thinking about dressing the dead. Did you wear clothes in heaven? Did you wear the ones you died in? Or did you wear the clothes you were buried in? Maybe that was why people always pictured people in heaven wearing gowns, like angels. Anything else was just confusing.

Lowen laughed at the thought of Abe wearing a gown. He thought of the teenage killer, whose name he suddenly remembered — Oliver, Oliver Jenson — wearing a gown. His mind entered back into his comic strip:

Abe’s reaction, the imagined one in his head, reminded Lowen of his siblings’ comments when they first arrived in Millville: There’s nothing here! Eventually Clem and Anneth had ceased complaining about the lack of a movie theater, a Trader Joe’s, or a pizza place in town.

That did not stop them, however, from putting up a huge fuss when, due to a lack of hair stylist or barber in town, Mum asked Rena (who had assured them that she’d had plenty of experience cutting hair) to come to the Albatross to cut the family’s hair.

Clem wasn’t home from practice yet, so Mum made Anneth go first. She sat up on a barstool that Rena brought. Rena wrapped an old sheet over her shoulders and, with a comb in one hand and a pair of pointy scissors in the other, proceeded to give her a trim.

“Don’t leave it too long here,” Anneth said, pointing to hair resting on her shoulders in back, “or my hair will flip up!”

Lowen stood nearby, waiting to see if Rena really knew what she was doing. Sami, who was used to watching her mother cut her sisters’ hair, was hanging out at the table with Mum, who was, as usual, looking for interesting recipes online.

“So,” Mum began, “I’ve finished designing the new menus and they should be arriving early next week. I figured you kids could also collect clothing donations for Restored Riches while you’re handing out menus.” Rena was due to open her used-clothing store in just three days, but so far very few people had brought in clothes to sell on consignment. “Two birds with one stone! What do you say?”

Was Mum for real? He shot Sami a look of horror.

“I hope you’re not including me as one of the kids,” said Clem, who had slipped in the door and was pausing to read his texts. “I have two papers due, and I still haven’t cut the boards for the porch, but I did get permission to use the workshop at school and I found a couple of kids who are willing to help me.”

“There’s no way I can go around, either!” said Anneth, keeping her chin down as Rena directed. “I can hardly get both my vlog and my homework done on time as it is. Besides, we have none of the cute factor of the younger ones.”

Sami’s sisters, who had been playing with Barbies on the couch, perked up. They knew they were cute, and going door-to-door probably sounded like fun to them.

“Sorry, kiddos,” Rena said to the youngsters. “You are too little.”

“Looks like it will be up to Lowen and Sami,” said Mum.

“But we have soccer, too!” said Lowen. “And homework, and . . . and I’m supposed to be painting my room!” (He’d gone back and bought a gallon of the cheap Ambrosia Blue. He figured it would work in a bedroom.)

“Besides, who wants kids knocking on their door?” Sami asked.

Rena held the scissors in the air, as if she were about to stab someone. “Don’t you want to live here?” she said. She looked at Sami and then at Lowen. “I’m serious. Don’t you want to stay in Millville?”

The room went quiet.

Clem stopped guzzling orange juice from the carton. “I do.”

“Me too,” Anneth mumbled.

“If we want to stay in Millville,” said Mum, “Rena and I have to make a living. We have to fix up our homes. If our businesses don’t succeed, we Grovers will be heading back to Flintlock, and —”

“We’ll be heading back to who-knows-where,” Sami said softly. She’d already told Lowen that her mom would never move back to the Bronx, so if Millville didn’t work out, there was no saying where the Doshis would end up.

Lowen looked at Mum, saw the plea in her eyes.

The Cornish Eatery had to succeed. It was the only way that Dad could give up the apartment, the only way they could have a house of their own, the only way Mum could have her dream. The only way they could stay where Clem and Anneth were so happy.

“OK,” he said. “I’ll do it.”