“Trust me, I don’t want him here. I don’t like him. Marie met him at a punk show or something.”

“And then suddenly one day he’s in your bedroom and another day he’s cutting our grass.”

Ellen must have told him about Wilson being in our room. We hadn’t told Thomas about Barbie Man and now it felt like it was too late.

“I know. It’s weird. But I swear he just did it. Marie didn’t ask him to do those things either.”

He didn’t believe me. “Wilson’s trouble. Stay away from him.”

“That’s like a daily goal.”

“I’ll try the Griffiths tomorrow for a lawn mower.”

I wanted to say No, don’t, anyone but them.

“Okay,” I said. I looked back out the window and watched a blue jay shoot across the sky toward the evergreens, then tilt backward into a stalling angle, the wings beating forward. We’d learned something about it in biology, how they have a bone or an extra wing that can help them brake.

After I left Sage’s that night in winter, I’d avoided her for almost three weeks. But I’d replayed our conversation in my head. Maybe Bill did make my mom happy. I had never really considered my mother’s happiness. I didn’t want her to be unhappy, exactly, but I certainly didn’t want her to be happy with Bill. I wondered if I wanted to punish her, and whether this was what was wrong between us. That she knew. It was Sage who fixed things. She called our house and spoke to Marie. Marie said to go look in the Kingdom, “whatever that means,” that Sage had left me something. I didn’t go for days, even though I was curious, and I missed her. Desperately. At school I had friends in my classes, but on the mountain it was always Sage.