“Take care of yourself,” I say as she closes her door, starts the engine.

We drop off Ms. B at home because she just wants to be alone for a bit, if that’s okay with everyone.

I lean my seat back as far as it’ll go, slide the moonroof cover open.

Overhead, stars puncture the night, and then we’re driving faster, and they’re no longer perfect glowing orbs; they’re streamers, fluttering, burning.

What if we become stars when we die?

Q would be easy to spot; the brightest, glossiest.

The funniest star the constellation has ever seen.

I look for him up there.

And then I close my eyes.

Autumn hugs me in our driveway.

“He left feeling loved,” she says. “That’s a lot.”

“I love you, Autumn. And that’s everything.”

She kisses me, long and hard, before hopping into her own car, her grandma calling her home for dinner.

Funny how life just goes, man.

It just fucking goes.

I cue up a video from my phone, beam it to the TV.

“What you doing?” Autumn asks.

“Figured maybe we should reset our memories,” I say.

She slides onto the couch beside me. Slides her arm around me.

And I push Play and let it wash over us.

Let them wash over us.

Every last wave.

“Andre, Andre, you’re too big for that thing! I thought you said that was for the kids!” Mom yells across the yard, her eyes squinting against the brightening sun. She’s on our back deck; I forgot it used to be red. Dad complained the entire time he painted it—I just don’t see it. A red deck, Jada?—until it was finished and he and Mom and me and Whit stood back a ways from the house and Dad just put his arm around Mom’s shoulders and squeezed her and she said not even gonna tell you I told you so.

“Babe, you think I’m gonna let our boys get in this thing without me first making sure it’s safe?” Dad calls back.

“Andre!”

But it’s too late—“Cannonball!”—Dad tries to tuck his knees but slips and dives face-first, plummeting into the red and yellow and blue and green balls. He sinks immediately, completely.

Until suddenly his hand juts through the plastic-sphere surface and we hear a garbled “I’m okay. Don’t call 911 . . . yet.”

And Mom shakes her head, but she’s laughing. Ohmigod, she’s laughing so hard. And so am I. And so is . . . Q. Our twelve-year-old selves, our shirts off, our swim trunks sagging from belly flopping down the Slip ’N Slide Ms. Barrantes brought over. Whit and Ms. Barrantes come running out the sliding patio door.

“What’s going on out here?” Ms. Barrantes asks.

And we all just point to the bouncy house, because we’re laughing too hard to talk.

Q’s laughing harder than anyone, which explains the shaky refraction.