I slide open the back door and step outside, careful to be extra quiet, since Nate is sprawled on the couch, sleeping. He’s wearing the flannel pajamas with space kittens on them I got him last Christmas.

I can’t see the ocean from here, but I can smell salt. That’s about as close as I want to be to large bodies of water these days. Cold, damp air wraps around me, but I’ve bundled up. How many Christmas mornings did I spend out here with Mom, drinking her peppermint hot cocoa? No one else wanted to be in the cold, but I always did. With her.

The hole I told River about, the feeling like I’m in a spaceship with a hole in it—it’s gotten bigger. Even though Nah is sober and might be okay, the hole keeps widening. I can feel it in my chest.

The more I think about what Dad did to Mom, to us, the more it feels like general relativity has been disproven. Nothing is certain. You can’t count on anything. Not even physics.

I don’t think the universe will ever make sense.

I close my eyes and imagine palm trees and the sound of the waves, the cafe up the street playing way too much Bob Marley and Sublime. The smell of Mom’s garden—basil and oregano and the lemon tree, heavy with lemons for avgolemono.

When I open my eyes, I see a flicker of movement to my left and my heart stops beating. My sister is lying in a pool of sunlight, eyes squeezed tight, her ear pressed against the flagstones.

“Nah!”

Her eyes pop open, but she doesn’t move.

No. Not today. Not any more days. NO.

I run, tripping over a stack of firewood as I rush past the covered patio furniture. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Those lines form between her eyebrows. “Nothing. I’m listening to the sound of the fire in the center of the globe.”

Her pupils look normal. Color is good. No pills. Maybe she’s drunk.

“I’m not using,” she says, rising onto her elbows. “I’m being the Hanged Man. Seeing the world from a different perspective. Yoko says, Listen to the sound of the fire burning in the center of the globe. So I’m listening.”

Humans are very surprising. Unpredictable. We are all quantum beings.

I really don’t know anything.

Even though it’s impossible to hear the molten core in the center of Earth—at least from a patio in Cape Cod—I find myself saying, “Can I listen, too?”

A smile I would classify as uncertain plays over her lips. “Really?”

I nod.

“Okay.”

I lie down next to her, on my stomach. Even though it’s cold outside, the sun has warmed the stones, and my many layers keep me warm. I rest my cheek against the stone and look at her.