If one of the Walker kids was going away, they would have matching luggage, and all the family would be outside helping, and everyone would be happy because they would know it didn’t really mean goodbye, that Harry and Minnie would make sure they saw their child every weekend. They would have barbecues out back to celebrate their kid’s safe return each trip home. But not us. My mother hadn’t even seen where Marie would be living. On the way home from Lancaster, when we passed Thrift Drug, she’d asked Marie if there was something she needed for her new apartment. Marie had said no, but my mom had insisted there must be something. We’d stopped so she could get Marie a tube of toothpaste, as if now Marie would be all set for life.

Marie often said, “Indulge her, she’s trying.” She said we’d made Mom feel helpless the past few years because we were all so capable. But I didn’t feel capable, and we weren’t okay. Thomas was holed up in his bedroom, growing further and further away from everything that was grounded on earth. Beatrice was sitting on Marie’s bed inheriting T-shirts and dresses, completely unaware that the one person who made sure everyone had eaten, and had their work done, who checked if the doors were locked at night, who somehow understood what was wrong with us at any given moment and explained it, was leaving. Instead of being sad that Marie was going, I was angry, angrier than I could ever remember. I wanted to kick something. I hated Sage. I hated my mother. I hated Jack Griffith. And I hated Marie for leaving me alone with all the worry of Wilson, Barbie Man, and Ellen.

I headed for the woods, barefoot. If I stepped on a copperhead, it would serve Marie and all of them right. I walked past the clumps of fern toward the tall grove of birch, the straight dignified silver-white trunks, the shimmer of green between them standing there, guarding the entrance of the woods. I stopped.

Sound changes in the woods; everything diminishes to the hum of the ground and the slight rustle of leaves at the top of the canopy, the light gathered in isolated clouds, everything green and light and shadow. “‘The green quiet,’” my father used to quote from a poet. I didn’t know what it meant, but beneath the mysterious words was a feeling I understood. The green quiet, that still calm in the woods.