I look around at the messy apartment. When Tristan’s dad lived with us, our house had family photos on the walls, too. And it was just as cluttered. Maybe it was his messiness that made Mom mad. “It’s just not working,” Mom said three years ago and then he moved out.

“Finally ready,” Tristan’s dad says, handing me Tristan’s backpack at last.

“Bye,” I say awkwardly. I never use his name. He’s always been “Tristan’s dad.” As if he had nothing to do with me. He’s Tristan’s dad, not mine. The sooner I forget about him—like Mom has—the better.

My brother waves and calls out, “Bye, Daddy!”

I help him buckle his booster seat, even though he can totally do it himself now. As I climb in the passenger seat, Tristan’s dad waves to him from the door.

After he moved out, Mom redecorated—not that she’s ever around to see it. “It feels so much more spacious in here, doesn’t it?” she said after decluttering and rearranging the living room. Duh, I thought. What really made it feel more spacious was the fact that there was one less person in our family. She covered the walls in oil paintings and artisan baskets and filled display cases with Chinese pottery and archaeological artifacts. And all our family photos disappeared.

Sometimes I’m not sure she’d even notice if I disappeared.

CHAPTER 5 Mattie

Your school pictures seem to have disappeared,” my mom says when I get home from school. She’s on our turquoise sofa in the living room, surrounded by boxes. “I’m making an album for each of you.” She holds up a stack of photo albums. “And a wedding album!”

I have my mom to myself for twenty minutes before Lucas and Kenny get off the bus. I sit on the floor and leaf through the boxes. There’s a pile of pictures from the wedding—just snapshots; they didn’t hire a photographer. Photos of Lucas and Kenny are mixed together in different cardboard boxes. “How can you tell them apart?” I ask, holding up two baby pictures of blond-haired boys.

My mom laughs. “I’ll have Bob help with those. I’m starting with yours. Look.” She hands me a half-filled book. I’ve seen the pictures before, but they were always kept in an old shoebox. “You were such a cute baby.”

I study one of my baby pictures. My cheeks are round and fat. My hair is black and flops over my forehead. I slip the photo out of the book and turn it over. Matilde, 10 months. I sneak it into my pocket; it’s my picture, after all.