The round table could fit four people comfortably or six if you didn’t mind squishing in. I sat down on one of the outdated chairs. The plastic tablecloth felt sticky even though it was clean. I reached for a faded wooden lemon from the bowl in the center.

Last time I was here, Colette sat across from me. She tried to juggle these lemons. I wonder if she was the last person to touch this.

Aunt Maureen set down my water.

“Are you doing okay?”

Don’t ask me that, I thought. It makes it worse.

I nodded because talking would make me cry. I felt like crying anyway. I picked up the glass and tried to wash away the lump in my throat.

Uncle Bran and Kennedy thunked down the stairs, across the room, and out the back door.

“Why doesn’t she have to help unload the car?” Kennedy asked her dad. I heard her through the screen door.

“She’s been through hell,” Uncle Bran said. “I think you can manage some kindness for—”

Aunt Maureen shut the inside door.

“Want to go lie down until dinner?”

I didn’t want to do anything. “Sure.”

I stood up, and Aunt Maureen pulled me into a tight hug.

“Oh, Tessy Bear, you’ve had a hard time of it, but things will get better. Day by day, it’ll get better.”

So many adults had said to me: It’ll get better.

No, it won’t, I thought.

Aunt Maureen released me, and I went upstairs, not feeling as terrified of the stairs this time. I walked up the center and barely held on, numb.

In the bunk-room doorway, I looked from right to left at the full-size bed Kennedy had claimed, the two sets of bunk beds on the far wall, and the queen bed to my left. Maybe I should have picked a different place to sleep, but I didn’t. I kicked off my shoes, crawled onto the queen bed and under the covers, and snuggled into my spot near the wall, leaving space for someone who wasn’t here anymore.

I closed my eyes, thinking of the kids at school. Colette’s family. My family.

How did you just keep going?

How did you joke around, signing each other’s yearbooks, at the end of a seventh-grade year that Colette didn’t finish?

How did you sell the house where she lived?

How do you laugh now when I feel like laughter is a foreign language?

How do you get out of bed without making deals with yourself?

How is Earth even still turning?

“You have an owie.”