“And when you can’t remember that? When it’s too hard?”

“When it’s too hard, well . . . you play the sad game.”

“What’s that?”

Jasper shifted herself, got up on her knees. “It’s something my mom taught me to do. This one night at bedtime, I was sad about something, just in the normal little-kid way. Because someone wouldn’t play with me at school or whatever. You know, like that?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I went downstairs, and my mom was sitting there, listening to music in the living room, and I told her I was sad, and she said that, sometimes, fighting the sadness is worse than the sadness itself, because you just can’t win. And at those times, you play the sad game. Which is just trying to let yourself be sad. To be okay with being sad.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a game,” I said.

“I know,” said Jasper. “But it actually kind of works, if you do it right. Like, that night, my mom put on this super slow song by a guy named Leonard Cohen, about a dove who keeps getting caught and sold. And she turned out the lights, and we lay there in the darkness on the couch together, listening to the sad moany song, and telling each other the saddest things we could think of. I fell asleep right there. And when I woke up in the morning, my mom was still holding me, and I couldn’t remember why I’d been so sad.”

“Huh,” I said. “That story is sweet. I’m not sure my mom would spend all night on the couch with me.”

Jasper nodded. “Well, to be fair, she was probably drunk. But it’s a nice memory. I think about it whenever I play the sad game alone, here at night. I go out on the porch and look at the trees blowing in the sky, or I listen to the cicadas, and I remember my mom, and just sort of sit with it all. I think it’s kind of funny, that one of my favorite memories started out so sad.”

“In that story, your mom doesn’t sound like I imagined her, just now, when you told me about her.”

“I get that,” said Jasper. “But the thing is that just because someone is in bad shape doesn’t mean they can’t also be smart or nice, or that you can’t also love them.”

I thought about that for a little while.

“Well,” I finally said, “I’m glad you love her, and I’m glad you have the sad game, but if you’re really stuck here, and this is your best option, what will you do in September, when it’s time to go back to school? Or in winter, when it gets super cold?”