“It’ll be okay.” Actually, I have no idea if it’ll be okay, but I do know that we can’t change any of the choices we made right now. I think of the choice of putting Frank Gómez’s picture in my binder. I’m glad I made that choice. “Maybe you need a distraction? Read me something from Professor Gómez’s book. The one you stole,” I add, and laugh again.

She lets a tiny smile creep into her face. Then she leans out of the hammock and grabs the book from her backpack. The animal shapes on the black cover appear and disappear in the shadows.

“The Maiden Stars,” she reads.

“That sounds boring.”

“No, listen. It starts in a hammock.” Mattie begins to read.

“One night the sun slept peacefully in her hammock. The moon came to her, but she wanted to be left alone so she covered his face in juice, staining it. Later, the sun gave birth to sisters, the Worecu stars. The sisters can always be seen near each other. Some say these stars are Taurus, Jupiter, and Saturn.”

“Who are the maidens? Why is the sun in a hammock?” I ask. Mattie shrugs. “Next story!”

“Okay, here’s one that says it’s an Incan myth. Is that the one in Mexico?”

“You’re thinking of the Aztecs. The Inca are in Peru. I thought you studied mythology at your old school.”

She ignores me and reads instead.

“Once the maker of everything put a princess in the sky. She had a jug of water, which she poured over the earth. That is how water came to earth. Her brother was put into the sky, too. He was given a club and a catapult, which he sometimes plays with, making thunder and lightning.”

“When I was little, I thought thunder was God bowling,” Mattie says.

“Tristan says thunder is when the dad from The Lego Movie is having a temper tantrum.” That’s what he said after he watched the movie the first time. He laughed so hard when he was watching the movie that I had my own temper tantrum. Gaby and Rebecca and I were trying to do homework, and I could hear him from upstairs. I yelled at him to stop and I yelled at Cristina to make him stop. I stomped around the living room and threw one of Mom’s vases from Japan on the floor. Talk about thunder. Gaby and Rebecca went home early that day. Not that I’m going to tell Mattie any of this.

“You must get along with your brother,” Mattie says.

“He’s a pain,” I answer. But that’s not the whole answer. He is a pain, but he’s my pain. “What about your stepbrothers?”