“Then you’re reacting in a totally normal way. Not everyone is a shit-show crier like me. If you’re sad, we can rule out total psychosis.” She laughs a little—my work here is done. Almost. I grab the bottle of Mom’s lotion off my bedside table. “Hold out your hand.”

She smiles. Runs a finger over the bottle. How many times did we see Mom hit the pump of this Jergens bottle after cooking in the kitchen, or gardening?

I squeeze a dollop onto her palm, then rub it into her skin, which is so translucent you can see bright blue veins running beneath it, like rivers on a map. My skin is darker, olive. Light, but with a dash of Mediterranean.

“Magic potion,” I say. “Remember how she used to stand by the kitchen window and rub it onto her hands for the longest time?”

“And she’d be playing Joni Mitchell or Enya.”

“Yeah.”

My sister’s hands are small, but her fingers are long and thin. Elegant and scholarly. Not stubby like mine. Her nails aren’t bitten and covered in chipped black paint like mine, either. They are neatly filed, bare with little half-moons peeking over the cuticles.

“Remember how Mom and Dad were always trying to get you to take piano lessons, because of your fingers?” I say.

She snorts. “And they didn’t give up until I proved that proficiency in math does not guarantee musical aptitude.”

Finished, I reach over and press the bottle once more, creamy white Jergens spreading onto my palm.

“Why Jergens?” Mae asks. “Always this cheap drugstore stuff.”

Original scent. Cherry almond essence. She never switched it up.

“It’s what Yia-yia used,” I say. “Her whole life, after she came to America. When she died, I remember Mom going into her bathroom at the nursing home and taking out the bottle. She was kind of hugging it to her chest. She told me how, when she was little, Yia-yia used to give Mom manicures, and she’d always rub this lotion on her hands first.”

“I never knew that,” Mae says. She runs her fingers over her palms. “Mom painted my nails the night Riley left for China. Do you remember? Each nail a different color.”

I nod. “Breakup nails.” I look down at my hands, at the chipped polish, the nails I’ve bitten so much they bleed. “What’s gonna happen to us?”

“It’s already happening,” she says softly.

“God, I miss Micah so much. And I saw him just, like, twenty-four hours ago.”

I don’t remember what it’s like to be mad at him. Absence maybe does make the heart grow fonder. I don’t know.

“You guys have been together for three years—you have nothing to worry about.” Mae’s lips turn up a little. “He worships you.”

I give her a sly glance. “Maybe you’ll find a nice Boston boy. Or girl.”