“Men Very Easily Make Jugs Serve Useful Needs, Perhaps,” says Maddie. “That includes Pluto. As does: My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas; My Very Educated Mother Just Sat Upon Nine Porcupines; My Very Energetic Mother Jumps Skateboards Under Nana’s Patio; Many Volcanoes Emit Mulberry Jam Sandwiches Under Normal Pressure.”

She still wears her pajamas, socked feet, on the couch close to Quinn. Quinn was able to get all the presents wrapped.

“My Violent Evil Monster Just Scared Us Nuts is without Pluto, since she was declared a dwarf planet. That’s sort of a scary one.”

Quinn’s charmed by Maddie’s assuming Pluto’s a she, finds it extra sad, the way she got pushed out.

“My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nachos,” Maddie says.

“I like that one,” says Quinn.

“My Very Easy Memory Jingle Seems Useless Now. Many Very Educated Men Justify Stealing Unique Ninth.”

“What is stealing ninth?”

“That one’s not very good.”

“Aside from Pluto, which is your favorite?”

“I hate favorites.”

“Tell me why you like each one.”

Maddie gets one of her planet books, and Quinn scrolls through her phone. Her ex-boyfriend has posted pictures of some girl she knows he knows from work. She opens Chrome and signs in to her mom’s Facebook and there are a whole bunch of new notifications since last night; there’s a whole new album of pictures posted on her wall. Quinn has to be careful not to mark anything that hasn’t been read as read, to disable the chat while she scrolls through. She sees photos of a small house set close to the street. Two empty bedrooms, a bathroom with an old claw-foot tub. Apparently Quinn’s mom moved out of the house she and Quinn lived in together. Quinn feels sure a man’s involved; her mother does not have the money to buy a house. Maybe getting rid of Quinn really did make her life better. Maybe now that she’s free she’s found all the things that she could never get when she had Quinn. Not everything is about you, is what her mom would say when she was little, what her mom would no doubt say to her now. But it feels like it’s about her, the fact that this house is so much nicer than the one they lived in together, an upgrade after all those years of hating that small, airless house where she grew up.

You’re the one who ran away, Quinn tells herself. She tells herself this over and over, to make herself less angry. It feels jarring, though, still, the way her mother’s life just keeps on going; the way she isn’t frozen, shocked and devastated, by Quinn’s not being there.

“Want to walk down to the foundry?” Quinn says, throwing her phone on the couch. “Fresh air?”

“I want to read,” says Maddie.