“What happened to him?” I ask. “To Lenny Bruce.”

“He died on his bathroom floor in Hollywood when he was forty. Overdose.”

I hate the Papaver somniferum.

Like Hannah, the poppy that her pills come from grows tall and thrives in temperate climates. It comes in many colors, but we usually associate it with fields of red. Blood red.

They’re pretty tough, for flowers, but the Papaver somniferum only blooms for a few days. Short life span.

The pod is where the trouble is. After the petals float off, you cut into the pod with a knife, catch the milky sap. Let it harden. And there you have it: opium. Smoke it, swallow it, shoot it into your veins. Crushed dreams and ruined lives.

The molecules in the poppy plant can chemically replicate the oxytocin we get from love or friendship or sex, and even that warm, gooey feeling when you’re holding a sweet baby. It’s why it feels so good. It’s an excess dopamine release in the reward center of the brain.

Hannah doesn’t have that sweet baby she wants to hold, but what is a baby, exactly? It’s someone to care for. Someone who looks up to you. Who depends on you. Someone who you want to be your best self for. Ideally, anyway. Maybe that’s her connection to Drew—maybe he provides oxytocin to her the way Ben provides it for me. But she needs a Ben, not a Drew. Not a drug dealer who is making her sicker. But she can get it from me, a little. It’s human connection that gives you oxytocin. Which is a very good argument for me staying in Boston.

I don’t want my sister to end up like Lenny Bruce. I want her to find other ways to kiss God.

“Nate?”

“Yeah?”

“I think that’s more data than I can handle right now.”

He nods. “Right. Sorry. Let’s do a puzzle.”

We do most of a puzzle. One of those color gradation ones that are really hard.

It doesn’t help.

It’s dark when they get back.

“Sit on the couch, Hannah,” Uncle Tony says.

His tone—I’ve never heard him angry. But he is now.

She storms past me and throws herself onto the love seat, arms crossed. A hospital bracelet circles her wrist, and there are dark smudges under her eyes.

Aunt Nora follows Uncle Tony into the living room, looking equally exhausted. Nate starts to stand.

“Do you want me to head out?”

“No,” she says. “This is a family discussion.”

“I don’t see how it’s any of their business,” Nah says, glaring at me, then at Nate.

Uncle Tony spreads his hands. “Kid, when you put everyone around you through hell, it’s their business.”

“I didn’t ask to move here, to live with you. If I’m too much of a burden—”