“Let me think,” he says. He takes his time, like he’s really considering my question. I wish all questions could be asked at two in the morning under a full moon where there was all the time in the world.

“It’s hard to understand someone when they don’t understand you. But trying, whether or not they understand you … well, to me, I think that’s love. And I think that’s what matters.”

“Doesn’t loving them mean you understand them?”

Eddie laughs and his shoulders shake. “Oh, I wish. Sometimes I look at Ellie and I think, what in the world is going on in that head? But I can’t—don’t want to change her. And she couldn’t change me even when she wants to! The point is to love all of each other, all the different parts just as they are, even the things we don’t get.”

I twirl a finger in the hem of my pajama pants. “So how do you do that?”

He turns to me, the craning of his neck forming a double chin, and he winks. “That’s the kind of question you’ll ask yourself over and over again for the rest of your life, and how wonderful is that?”

I think about Eddie’s words for a long time, before we head inside. I’ll be thinking about them for a while longer too.

When we do step back inside the RV, Eddie whispers good night and heads to the room where Ellie is sleeping. Ruth didn’t move when we came in and both Eddie and I thought she was asleep, but after Eddie closes the back-room door, I glance over and her eyes are open. She’s watching me. Feeling the colors of the city and the sound of frogs and the whispering breeze inside me, I sit on the edge of her bed. She untucks an arm and lays it across the top of her blanket.

A big part of me wants to tell her everything, tell her about this Treasure Hunt I’m trying to do. Ask her if she remembers all the details of last time, the way I do. Ask her if all those times, all those songs and pictures and words, meant the same thing to her as they did to me.

Instead I whisper, “Do you remember any of the pictures we put in the box?”

She nods, her eyes blinking with sleep. “Mm-hmm, some of them. Especially that one, I think you’re in the bathroom, and I stole Mom’s eyeliner to draw a goatee on you.”

I try to keep my laughter quiet. “I remember that.”

“Oh man, I remember we accidentally spilled eye shadow all over the sink.” Ruth looks over at the couch and snorts. “Mom grounded us for a week.”

“Yeah, she did. And then bought us face paint.”

“Who were you trying to be again?” she says.

“Calico Jack.”