Kennedy had on a gray top with a low neckline and wide arm holes, so I could see her black bra underneath in the reflection in the side mirror. She’d drawn a tiny black heart high on her right cheekbone with eyeliner, just under her eye, and she had on a bunch of necklaces in different lengths with mismatched charms and stones. She looked like she was going to a concert, not the grocery store.

From my seat behind Kennedy, I had a clear view of the speedometer: we were going more than seventy miles per hour. Probably, we weren’t even close enough to the shoulder for this to happen, but I still worried more with every mile marker we whooshed by that my cousin’s dangling arm would catch on a post or sign or something and be torn off in an instant.

I was always thinking of the worst that could happen. The seed of panic would get planted, watered, and grow and grow until . . .

Kennedy suddenly turned down the music.

“Are you staring at me, Harper?” Hah-pah.

Uncle Bran glanced at me in the rearview mirror and then gave Kennedy a look.

“No,” I said. “I’m just . . .” I gestured toward the rolling hills of squat, prickly, ankle-scratching sagebrush.

“Didn’t look like it,” Kennedy said.

“Hey, leave her alone,” Uncle Bran said. “Just listen to your music. We’ll be there soon enough.”

“I don’t know why I have to go shopping anyway,” Kennedy said.

“Because you want to help your dad.” I saw in the side mirror when Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Besides, it’ll go faster if we each take part of the list and split up. I need to log on when we’re back at the cabin. Not everyone gets to do nothing this summer like you do.”

“Whatever,” Kennedy said before cranking the music back up.

I looked down at my phone. Frankie had sent me a slow-mo video of our dog, Pirate, digging for a clam on the beach. It was the kind of thing I’d have loved four months ago, but now it just felt stupid.

How can you just casually make videos?

Why aren’t you sadder?

Am I the one who’s wrong?

I tore a piece of skin from my left thumb with my teeth—the stinging pain making me stop thinking questions at my sister, who was hundreds of miles away and probably wouldn’t have had answers that made sense to me anyway. Sometimes, Frankie was the person who got me most in life. Other times, we lived on different planets.

Kennedy grabbed her phone and stopped the music. “I hate this song,” she said, thumbing through the options. “I have to find something else.”

“You could let Tess choose the next one,” Uncle Bran suggested.

“I could,” Kennedy said, but didn’t ask what I wanted to listen to.