It changed things for everyone else, too—my being here. I’ve picked up bits of the story. There had been a meeting before I got here. Lolly briefed the Swans on my situation and they took a vote. The result was not unanimous. But the agreement was that I could stay a while until my parents managed to clean up. She talked about it in terms of days and weeks, let them picture me mostly in my room in Lolly’s house, tweeting links to BuzzFeed lists or whatever they think kids do with all their time. I’d leave them alone, and they’d leave me alone.

Three or four days after my parents had gone, I left the house by myself for the first time and ventured into the center. Lolly was off-island doing a day’s work at her old company in Portsmouth, and my mind felt like it was eating itself. I’d try to read or watch TV but my attention was pulled out by the tides, up and down, in and out, shifting frequencies that made my skull buzz. At one point I turned everything off and surrendered to existing in the box of my off-blue guest room with the torture music of the Atlantic tide. When I noticed myself laughing, I knew I had to go outside.

The walk to the north side of the island felt longer than it does now. The sky pressed down, threatening snow, and the wind followed me like an asshole bully and I didn’t have a pair of gloves. There’s something extra terrible about a freezing cold island, like being lost in space. I’d thought for a second that I could make this a useful experience, pleasant even, that this was actually the perfect place to learn how to knit, for example. But then I realized I didn’t know who to ask or how. Or, rather, it felt like I couldn’t possibly ask anything of anyone. They were already letting me be there, giving me a place to stay so that I didn’t have to make the kinds of choices you have to make when you’ve got nothing and you’re alone.

I walked past the chapel. It was silent except for the whirring of the wind like the sound when a CD is about to play on an old machine, so I went up to it and stuck my head around the door. Unfortunately it was tai chi that morning; the Swans do it inside during the winter. They all turned and stared at me like I had a foot growing out of my face. Mostly they smiled. I guess they felt sorry for me.