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My grandmother’s door didn’t have a number. It had a brass sign that read THE ROSE ROOM.

I knocked on this door and my cousin Richard “Rags” Naples answered.

“Hey, King,” Rags greeted. He wore taupe-colored cotton pants and a dark blue work shirt. If you met him on the street, you would have thought he was some down-on-his-luck, milquetoast, low-level day laborer. But you would have been wrong. Rags was a professional mercenary who could kill you with bare hands. And, on top of that, he almost always went armed with a pistol at the back of his pants, a dagger in a sheath on the outer side of his left calf, and maybe one or two other death-dealing devices nestled here and there. You couldn’t see any of that. You wouldn’t until you were already dying.

“How’s it goin’, cousin?” I asked.

“I beat her at chess, but she wins at hearts every time.”

Rags was five foot eight with the bearing of a lion in his prime.

“She knows her cards,” I said, just to be saying something. “Where you been?”

“I had to take a few days off. My son was sick, and somebody had to sit up with him. His mama had finals, so it fell to me. But you don’t hafta worry about Brenda; my, uh, replacement’s a competent guy.”

“You have a son?”

“Oh yeah. Ashton Richard Naples.”

“You married too?”

“I got this girl Lucinda pregnant and when I asked if she wanted an abortion, she asked me did I wanna marry her. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Is it still?”

“We’re still together.”

My grandfather, Grandma B’s husband, once told me, “There’s only one thing you really need to know about people, Joe.”

“What’s that, Grandpa?”

“That you can know somebody your whole life and not know them at all.”

“And, um, this Lucinda’s in college out here?” I asked Rags.

“Uh-uh, no. It’s low residency, like your daughter does. The exam is online. They’re out here with me, but I needed to sit up with Ashton while she studied in the next room.”

Walking through a kitchen, a living room, and a sitting space, I finally made it to my grandmother’s door. I knocked and an Egyptian woman named Miria Thoth answered.

“Hello, Joe,” the fifty-something caregiver greeted. “Can I help you?”

“Grandma B,” I said aloud.

“Let him in, Meer,” my oldest living relative called out.

Miria didn’t like me going around her like that, but I was tired of having to explain myself.

My grandmother Brenda Naples was sitting in a reclining chair next to a huge window that looked over West Los Angeles, all the way to the Pacific. The window was partly open, allowing a crisp breeze to flow over her. She was covered by a heavy fur blanket and wore a pink cotton tam that was pulled down over her ears.

“Baby,” she called aloud. “Come give me some sugar.”

I leaned down and kissed her lips, as was our custom.

Miria pulled over a pine folding chair for me to sit in.

“How ya doin’, B?” I asked.

“Better’n I deserve.”