“So,” I say, “which is the oldest animal here? In the aquarium?”

She bites the inside of her cheek for a moment. “Hmm, good question.” She looks around for a second until she spots what she’s looking for. “That guy right there, I’m pretty sure.”

I look where she’s pointing and it’s my good friend the sea turtle again. He moseys slowly along the glass, following some yellow fish.

“Awesome!” I say. “Does he have a name?”

“Oh yes,” says the lady. “We call him Ned.”

Camera in hand, I look for Ruth. She’s looking down between her feet at a thick patch of pink coral. I keep one eye on her and one on Ned as he swims over our heads, and I try to triangulate myself between them to get a shot of both of them together, maybe even looking at each other. I try not to get too close so Ruth doesn’t notice I’m kind of following her.

She groans, looking hard at her phone like it’s just insulted her. Ellie notices too. “Everything okay?” she asks.

“It’s nothing,” says Ruth.

“You sure?” says Ellie.

Ruth glances at me, then looks back at Ellie. “It’s nothing, just this songwriting contest I submitted to. I didn’t win.”

“Oh gosh, I’m sorry, Ruth,” Ellie says. “That’s got to be discouraging.”

“It’s whatever,” says Ruth.

Ellie looks concerned, but lets it drop. I watch Ruth walk toward the glass, not seeing the stingray swimming right in front of her.

I take a couple of steps closer to her. Ellie, Eddie, and Darcy have meandered to other parts of the room. The shimmering reflection on the floor is like walking on light waves.

These are the kinds of Ruth situations I’ve always been terrible at, even before Ruth got sick. The knowing-what-to-say part. The comforting part. I can never get the tone right, like a singer always slightly off-key. I try, but can always tell I come off like a trite, ignorant cheer captain instead of someone who really cares. It seems like this should be such an obvious thing, comforting my sister. But somehow for me, knowing exactly what to say to make her feel better is like a bird knowing how to breathe underwater.

But I have to try.

Another step closer. I want her to know that I don’t care about our dumb argument anymore, and I’ve put it behind me. That there will be more opportunities. That she should always keep working on her songs and her own things no matter what, because they’re amazing.

Great. Even in my own head I’m a dumb cheerleader.

“Hey, um, I had no idea you were sending your songs to contests and stuff. That’s really cool. You’ll get the next one.”

“Right,” she says.

“Seriously.”