The Night Wanderer

Tiffany has a full Saturday planned, but when her grandmother asks, she insists that she is not up to much. She reflects that she cannot picture Granny Ruth being her age; Granny Ruth’s husband, Albert, died when Tiffany was young, and ever since, Granny Ruth has missed her conversations with him in Anishinaabe. Now, Granny Ruth asks Tiffany to take the laundry down to the basement; when Tiffany goes down, she notices the carpeted room and thinks about Pierre, who is asleep inside. She approaches and listens but cannot hear any sign of life. She notices that the room is cloaked in an eerie darkness, but before she can peek, Granny Ruth calls for her, so she grabs her jacket and heads out.

Keith returns home without ducks and finds the house in the middle of a power failure. He goes into Tiffany’s room to take batteries from her CD player for the flashlight and finds a progress report sticking out of her history book; it states that she is failing nearly every subject except art. Keith immediately blames Tiffany’s performance on Tony, but Granny Ruth argues that it could be the turmoil at home and Keith’s own treatment of her, which Keith brusquely denies.