Nah hates it. Hates it. You take her anywhere below seventy degrees and she’s miserable. She doesn’t like wearing socks. She is suspicious of places without palm trees or green juice or sun all the time. She was already wilting in LA—even before the wave. One of those roses that needs very special fertilizer and gardeners who sing to them and the perfect balance of shadow and light. I am afraid she is going to shrivel up in Boston.

Aunt Nora lives in a two-story brick house in Brookline, on a quiet street lined with other big, old houses. I thought I’d miss the sound of the ocean, of skateboarders rolling by, and people cooking out all the time, Micah’s surfboard propped up next to the front door, but I don’t. I like the quiet here, how it wraps around you like a soft blanket. Sometimes in the morning I look out the window and see wild turkeys in the backyard. Actual turkeys. There is frost, and the air smells like autumn: crispy and smoky.

Sometimes Earth is an excellent place to be, if you can’t orbit it.

We’ve been here countless times before—with our parents, on vacation. I can still see Dad holed up in a corner of the living room, reading in the leather wingback chair. Mom would always be in the kitchen, cooking while Aunt Nora worked on legal briefs at the table and kept refilling their wineglasses. Uncle Tony might kick them out to make his famous meatballs or lasagna if he wasn’t working on his car. Nate would be showing me something insanely cool that he built for class. Hannah would be on the phone with Micah.

It’s not like that now.

For one, it’s been very, very quiet. Just me, Nah, and our aunt and uncle, all of us tiptoeing around, speaking in whispers. We’ve only been here a few days, so I’m sure that will change. I don’t feel like a guest, exactly, but I don’t feel like it’s my home, either. They keep saying it is, but it’s not. So far, Nah refuses to eat much of anything, so I end up alone with my aunt and uncle for meals. We don’t know what to say, so we end up watching TV, which would have driven both of my parents mad.

My room is on the second floor, down the hall from Hannah’s. It overlooks the tiny backyard while hers looks out onto the front yard, just like our setup in Venice. There’s a huge sycamore tree taking up most of the backyard. Nate, Nah, and I named it Elvis when we were all really little. I like Elvis. He’s here to stay, and it’s nice to know that something isn’t going to change.