She was silhouetted against the window, her long spine hunched into the warmth of her plush robe as she gazed out the window.

“I thought I heard him meow,” she said.

I came to stand beside her. “I’m sorry.”

She still didn’t move. I glanced at her.

Tears, little diamonds shining in the faded light of the moon, cascaded down her face in steady streams.

Hesitantly, a little afraid she would shrug me off, I put an arm around her shoulders. I thought of a hundred things to say, but in the end I came back to Orman.

“You know the little river? The one across the street, that runs through the park?”

Jenna nodded.

“Maybe it runs to Orman,” I said. “And maybe Emmeline and Ainsley needed a tubby old cat to help them feel less homesick for this world.”

Jenna was quiet. I was starting to feel really stupid when she said, “Moot will do well in Orman, don’t you think? The cook at Siren’s Point will probably feed him so much he won’t be able to walk.”

I laughed louder than necessary in my relief. “Yeah, or maybe Emmeline will love him best, but he’ll choose to live with Ainsley, and it will make Em angry.”

“Likely.”

The corner of Jenna’s mouth twitched, and she dropped her head onto my shoulder, wiping at the tears on her cheeks. The night air was freezing my face, but I didn’t dare move, for fear of breaking the moment.

Jenna might never cry, but I do.

I force myself to dry my tears and bottle up my anger. We only have one day before Jenna leaves for Ireland.

One day to unpack—and in Jenna’s case, repack—and to squelch out the bubbles of dead and empty space I have built up between us since she told me about N. E. Endsley.

We reach a strange equilibrium, placing Jenna’s new books she got at the festival on shelves and trying again and again to fit her extensive botanist-in-training wardrobe into the two suitcases she is bringing. Jenna unrolls the reading poster we bought, making eye contact with me across her unmade bed full of sock balls, and smiles, holding it higher as if to say, Look.

I nod dully. Yeah.

She rolls it back up and puts it in the tube, setting it atop my tote bag to take home with me, and sighs.

I’m sorry, the sigh says, but I pretend not to hear it and continue to roll her tops into tiny little cylinders.