Ros laughed. “Celia. Do you know how strange it was to be without my dad this year? Like, do you really know?”

“I know it was hard,” I acknowledged.

“Hard doesn’t begin to cover it,” said Ros. “To look into the balcony at swim meets and not see him there? To drive home and not see his car in the driveway? To not hear him singing along to oldies as he cooked? That was all hard. But it wasn’t just that he was gone; it’s that without him, I was suddenly famous. Like I was wearing the scarlet letter—like everyone, classmates, teachers, coaches, neighbors, you name it, knew who I was and what had happened to me, and they were all staring at me with these looks. Sometimes like they pitied me. But sometimes it was like they couldn’t get enough of staring at some sideshow freak. I was everyone’s worst nightmare: the Kid Whose Dad Left, and all they could do was stare. I felt like a zoo animal. Even you were looking at me all the time.”

“I thought I was helping,” I said.

“You did help,” Ros said. “You knew that a change of scene would be good for me. And it was. When I was here, I finally got away. No one was looking at me. I wasn’t under any microscope. I wasn’t the Kid Whose Dad Left. I was just me.”

They paused to chew on their thumbnail, and I took the opportunity to look at them, their hair like a tornado, their golden eyes glinting, their snowbrow as alluring as ever. I’d had their face memorized for years, but there was still so much about them that I didn’t know. Still so much about them I wanted to learn, if they’d let me.

They bit off their nail and continued. “I think it’s better this way, going home. Better not to leave my mom all on her own. I’d just be doing the same thing my dad did if I left.”

“Do you think—if I hadn’t brought us here—if I hadn’t done all of this—we’d still be—” I stopped, unsure of which words I wanted.

“I think we’d still be different,” said Ros. “That’s part of it, isn’t it?”

“Part of what?”

“Growing up.”

We were crossing under the bridge now, the one we took to get into town, picking our way along a steep downhill. Beside us, the river gathered speed and the water tumbled down the hill, forming a small set of falls I hadn’t known was there. I turned back to catch a glimpse of the Lily Pad, but from this angle, it wasn’t even visible.

“Maybe the Lily Pad’ll be better,” I said. “Maybe they’ll, like—put in a waterslide into the river.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea. Or, like, a greenhouse.”