He walked quietly down the side alley his parents had taken, into the shadows near the kitchen window at the back of the house, and he listened.

Chapter 5 — Eat in Your Room

The voices inside were crystal clear through the open window.

It was his father’s voice he heard first, and something in the tone of it, tentative, careful, almost pleading, was so unlike the Manuel he knew that it stopped Alvin’s breath.

“Veronica,” his father said.

“Is it alright if we eat dinner at the kitchen table tonight?”

Veronica was the wife of Derek, Alvin’s younger brother.