“What’s up?” An impossible question, as good a place as any to begin.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Marta’s unsteady voice was full of accusation. She sucked in her cigarette and exhaled hard, a fierce dragon.

“We ain’t talking.” Dune remembered now—Marta had asked for this boundary. Specifically, Marta had cheated and then wanted boundaries when Dune started asking questions.

“But…we’re family.”

Dune’s memory and anger flashed forward like lightning inside her, bright and brand new. “We were. Then you fucked Max.”

Marta’s eyes snapped over to Dune’s face, briefly, brimming again with tears.

“Kama was like a mom to me, Dune.” Marta’s voice was low, guttural.

True. Ish.

Marta had found Dune in the Detroit Summer youth organizing program, which Mama Vivian had cocreated with Wes and others decades ago. Dune’s introversion meant she was perfectly happy with minimal contact, coming home after school to do her homework and then reading epic science fiction sagas, briefly interrupted by dinner. Kama had signed Dune up for the program to help her get better at making friends.

Dune was with DS from ages fourteen to eighteen, first gardening, then making community media projects. Marta joined the program the summer they were sixteen. By the end of the first week they were friends—Marta was also bookish, though much more extroverted and experienced at connecting with other humans. She would slip her body against Dune in hugs that woke Dune up into desire.

Early on, when they were friends, Kama often drove the girls across town to drop Marta off after the all-day workshops. One night, pulling up to the saggy-porched half duplex in Southwest, they’d witnessed Marta’s parents having a front yard brawl, her mother held by the hair, punching her father in the belly. Instead of dropping her off, Kama kept driving, bringing Marta back for the night, no questions asked. Kama had let their home be a safe place for Marta to land.

“But she wasn’t your mom.”

That night the girls had talked for hours about Marta’s family, and then what they each wanted out of life. Dune wanted to become a writer. Marta was a dancer who could sing ok. Somewhere in all the talking, Marta had leaned over and kissed Dune. They’d made out for hours on the couch in the living room while Kama was out running a meeting on the water shutoffs. Marta had practically lived with them since then, the young lovers acting like best friends, or sisters, but finding secret moments to slide fingers into each other, kissing until their mouths felt bruised. Kama pretended not to notice, but when Dune came out to her mother a year later there was no surprise.