My mother’s scent hits the room, so strong I can hardly breathe. A summer rose garden. For just a second I hear her singing along to Joni Mitchell.

“I thought you science guys were above stupid things like sports,” Hannah drawls.

My sister floats in, already a ghost. Moondust pale. She doesn’t even need a costume to hand out candy to kids tonight. I try to catch her eye, but it’s like studying the night sky in LA: It’s impossible to get a clear picture when there’s so much stuff between you. Ever since she became a supernova on the kitchen floor, single-handedly smashed the ISS to smithereens, and told me our family was done, she’s been avoiding me even more. Holes up in her room like she’s in quarantine. But her pupils are normal, so she’s sober. This afternoon, anyway.

“Hey, we may be atheists, but baseball is religion here.” Nate digs into another pumpkin with a knife that would have made Mom nervous.

There is less breath in me when I hear Mom say, It’s sharp—be careful! My mind is a time capsule. A golden record that reminds me what we were, what was.

“You know what we call Fenway Park, where the Sox play?” Nate’s saying.

“A good waste of a Saturday afternoon?” she says.

Nate stares. “I cannot believe we are related.”

“The cathedral.” Ben spreads his hands like Gram’s priest standing under the crucifix, but his are slimy with pumpkin bits. “Holiest place on the Eastern Seaboard.”

Nah groans. “That is ten kinds of wrong.”

“You, too, huh?” I say.

He nods. “My family is deeply ashamed that a Brooklyn boy loves the Red Sox. I have your cousin to blame for that.”

“You’re welcome,” Nate sings, in full Moana mode.

Ben rolls his eyes and pulls the guts out of the gourd, his fingers tangling with mine. Deliberately.

I stare at him. He stares back. The force field here is so strong I’m sure we could suck in entire star systems.

The doorbell rings, and Hannah drifts toward the front of the house. “That’s for me.”

As soon as Nah’s out of range, Nate leans close, his voice low. “I’m gonna put this in Mae-speak, okay?”

I nod.

“She’s out of orbit. Understand?”

I nod. He’s right. I know.

When satellites and other objects in space orbit Earth, they’re able to maintain their path through a perfect balance between the object’s inertia and its forward momentum, and the pull of gravity on it. If any of these things is changed, the satellite will either crash down onto what it’s orbiting or spin off into space. The change usually happens if the object collides with something in space—a meteorite, something like that.

A tsunami.

Mom, Dad, Micah—they all kept her in orbit. Now she’s spinning.