“Mm,” said Nova. Yes, Francine had pointed it out before, but Nova wasn’t sure she was supposed to care. A cross was nothing but painted wood stuck in the ground. She did not look at the cross. She was ready to be All Done with this talk now.

“The cross reminds us that…that we…” Joanie paused, searching for words. “We miss people when they’re gone, but we keep them with us by remembering them. Even if they’re not passed, but, like, gone for some reason, we miss them and remember them—like how I miss my brothers because they all grew up and moved away. I keep a picture of them in my room, and when I look at it I remember all the time I spent following them around when I was younger, before they went to college. Like how I’m leaving to go back to college tomorrow. Which is why we went to the diner. You know?”

Joanie wasn’t making much sense, in Nova’s opinion, so Nova did not know. But she said “Mm” because she was ready to be All Done.

Joanie was not All Done.

“And that’s okay! It’s okay for you to miss your mom, and it’s okay for me to miss my brothers, like how I know you miss Bridget…”

Nova tilted her head slightly. Missing someone was what you did when they were away, when they were gone. She remembered Bridget telling her that when they were first taken away from Mama.

“I know you miss Mama,” Bridget used to say. “I miss her too.”

But Nova didn’t miss Mama. Not anymore. She could hardly remember her, and what she did remember was just okay. They baked one time and that was fun, and they would walk down to the brook to skip stones sometimes, but she didn’t know what to expect with Mama. Not like Bridget.

“So, like, what I’m trying to say…”

“Mm!” Nova wanted to tell her to just spit it out already.

“I guess my point is that family is…there are a lot of different kinds of families, you know?”

“Mm,” said Nova. She couldn’t help feeling like she was overusing that word today, but this time, she did know. Their first foster mother read them a book about All Kinds of Families.

“Some kids live with two parents, some live with grandparents, some have lots of brothers, some have just one sister, and some are only children. You see?”

Nova did not see how this family stuff had anything to do with sitting here by a cross on the side of the road or with the diner or with college or with David Bowie on the radio.