We brushed fallen leaves off the steps and sat. Jasper took the top step and I sat below her. Then we drank our root beer, and after a while, the cicadas started up, with their crazy loud chirping buzzing noises, which came in waves, louder for a bit, then subsiding into a softer sort of hum. It was calm, and it felt good to have worked hard with Jasper, to have helped. There was dirt all over me, and cobwebs in my hair, but I didn’t care.

“What a day!” said Jasper.

“Has it only been a day? It feels like longer to me. Like I’ve been here a week.” And it really did. As if time had slipped. As if hours spent with Jasper took longer than regular hours, counted for more. Like dog years.

Jasper laughed. “If you’d been here a week, someone would have come looking for you.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I sighed. “You know, sitting here like this, with you, reminds me of how it was . . .”

“How what was?”

“Just . . . how it used to be at home. Before Sam died.”

“Really? How so?”

“Just, you know . . . in the summer, on a day like today. Dad would grill burgers on the deck, and Sam would ‘help,’ which basically meant standing next to Dad and passing him the hamburger flipper whenever he needed it. Even when he was really little, Dad would pretend Sam was actually useful. Mom and I would sit nearby with a drink, and watch, and try not to laugh our sodas out our noses, because the hamburger flipper was bigger than Sam was, and he looked so silly. But he was so proud.”

“It sounds nice,” said Jasper. “Relaxing.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess that’s what I always thought family was supposed to be. Relaxing. You know?”

“Not quite,” said Jasper, shaking her head.

“Well, that was how it was, for me,” I said. “Not perfect. My parents are . . . parents. And Sam drove me crazy, jumping on things all the time, and telling me about his boring video games nonstop. But I mean, it’s like . . . school can be hard and friends are complicated, sometimes. Mean girls pick on you and boys tease you and teachers are confusing. But at home, for me, it was always just . . . home. Dad was a dad and Mom was a mom, and Sam and I were the kids, and we did things the way we did things. We knew how to be us. So even when we fought and annoyed each other, it just felt easy. Because I always knew how things would be.”

“That sounds really nice,” said Jasper. “My house wasn’t like that at all.”

“No?” I said, turning around to face her.

“No. Just . . . no.”