When I fall asleep I dream that I’m on a beach, and my sister’s in the water. The tide’s pulling her out and I can’t tell if she knows it; if she’s trying to float away, or trying to fight it. I call her name and she shouts something back at me but I can’t hear the words. I call and keep calling her, but she’s farther away, bobbing in the distance, her graceful arms moving.

All I hear is the sound of waves, the crash of the ocean, and my own hollow, fearful voice.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

It’s morning and I’m in the upstairs bathroom, peering at an ovulation test strip and waiting to see if the line darkens, when the doorbell rings.

The line doesn’t darken.

I throw the strip in the trash and jog down the stairs. Oliver left early this morning, didn’t even wake me before he went.

Downstairs I can see Mom’s fuzzy outline through the glass door. I know she thinks it’s a little hostile that we haven’t just given her keys to let herself in. It’s just, Mom is inclined to have an opinion on things and even if the doorbell just buys me an extra fifteen seconds, I like having those seconds to get the place Mom-proofed.

“It’s your grandma,” I say, when I spot Sam coming out onto the landing. He’s wearing a hoodie that looks identical to yesterday’s barring the logo, and he’s got those giant earphones hanging like a padded collar around his neck.

I unlatch the door.

“Mom—come on in.”

She swings into the hallway and spots Sam on the stairs.

“There he is! Sam, you’re so tall!”

“Thanks, Grandma.” He plods across the hall to us and tolerates my mom’s embrace without flinching. She pulls back and beams at him. I’m startled to see Sam not just smile, but almost grin.

“I made some caramel apple pie. Is that still your favorite?”

Sam offers another from his vocabulary of shrugs, but my eye’s been getting some practice and this one definitely looks on the more enthusiastic side. How is Mom getting this reaction out of him?

She leads us into my kitchen like a victorious general at the head of her troops, then starts divesting herself of the Tupperwares under her arm. This is a new thing for Mom ever since she got the diabetes diagnosis. She loves baking, but doesn’t like to have baked goods in the house, so that’s where Oliver and I—and now Sam, I guess—come in.