“Yes. Ben goes to MIT. So … you know. If I stay here, he and I can be—”

“You are not staying in Boston for me,” she growls. “And you would never stay for some person you were dating. Not even Ben.”

“Ben’s a bonus. He’s not the reason. Seeing Nate in the astronautical program has shown me how great their—”

She grabs my arm so hard I can feel the bruise form. “I am not your fucking responsibility.”

But she is. We are taming her, and now we are responsible. Forever.

“You’re my sister,” I say, “and I love you and I think it would be really cool to have an apartment together and live near my boyfriend and Nate, too, and … MIT is amazing. I can still get into NASA this way and—”

“I don’t want to live in your stupid apartment, okay?”

Mom, a little help. Please.

“But what will you do? School’s done in six months. Are you going to stay here, live with Aunt Nora and Uncle Tony by yourself? You’d be so bored! And lonely.” And maybe still on drugs. I rest a hand on her knee. “I know everything is so bad right now. But we need a plan. What do you want?”

She lets go of my arm. Stares into the street.

“Nothing,” she says, soft.

She’s like George Clooney’s character in Gravity, floating off into space. Farther and farther into the darkness, with nothing but a country song to sing him to sleep.

Work the problem. I have to work the problem.

“Then I’ll want for the both of us until you decide on something,” I say. “And I want you to be happy. And healthy. And alive. You deserve good things, Nah. A good life.”

She just looks at me.

“Starting with a brownie.” You have to start somewhere. “I’m bringing you a brownie. And then you can teach me some yoga. The stuff you and Mom did. Will you? Downward cat? Or whatever it’s called?”

I haven’t seen her do yoga since the wave. Her mat is always out in her room, like she’s waiting for the right moment.

“I’m tired.” She closes her eyes and leans her head against the window seat wall.

“Then I’ll bring coffee, too,” I say. She’s not the only Winters that gets to be stubborn.

She doesn’t move. A statue.

“Okay. I’ll be back soon. Coffee, brownie, yoga. Uncle Tony said he was gonna get a tree today, too. We could decorate later, if you want. We have some of the ornaments from LA. The egg from when we all went to Prague, remember? The one you love.”

I pick up the afghan, settle it around her. She doesn’t move.

I’m halfway out the door when she says, “Mae?”

“Yes?”