He turned to look at me, waiting. “Well?”

“A boron.”

“Very funny, Libby, but you don’t even know what boron is. You’ve just admitted that I’m supernova material, not even of this earth.”

“All of you stop,” Marie said from the front, and she looked back at us over the seat. Her hair on one side was dyed black and spiked out like Siouxsie Sioux’s. She’d pierced her cheek and shaved the other side before the graduation mass at school, and it was growing back in blond stubble. Both Thomas and I went quiet. Marie was almost eighteen, only a year older than Thomas, but we listened to her, especially since she was giving away the rock albums she didn’t want anymore. She’d left Who’s Next on my pillow after I stayed home with Beatrice while she snuck out to a party, and Thomas got Quadrophenia for winning the highest GPA in his class. We both wanted Tommy. Thomas said he should get it, given his name and all. I didn’t want to point out further similarities, like a dead father, a mother with a secret boyfriend, and not being allowed to say anything. Neither of us even had a record player. Marie had a portable turntable, and we all used that.

Outside, dogwoods lined the understory where the woods met the fields, and even in the falling light I could see they were stripped of their bloom. Cornus florida. Oval leaves with primary veins that curve upward along smooth, wavy margins. Clustered flowers surrounded by bracts that people mistake as the petals. My father had bought me The Field Guide to the Trees of North America the last Christmas before he died. I’d read and reread the book, committing to memory every tree fact I could. I’d started a tree notebook, identifying all the trees I saw with descriptions of them in different seasons. I sketched them, took bark rubbings, pressed their flowers.

His gift had arrived in a package with a postmark from New York City, where he’d gone to live, working with a cousin, an Irish immigrant like himself. He’d gotten us each a card. For me, a forest of spruce, one tree separated out in front with a star on top. His handwriting was small and uneven, as if he weren’t used to signing cards, which I guess he probably wasn’t.

“For Libby, always in a tree. Merry Christmas. Love, Dad.”