The reports that the tornado had only damaged the Portnoys’ house hadn’t been exaggerated. Aside from a few broken shutters on houses along their street and some overturned patio furniture, nothing looked askew—until I arrived in front of Mischa’s house. Its roof had been torn clean off, and half of the westernmost wall was gone too, making the house look as if an enormous monster had taken a bite out of it. My mother liked to jokingly refer to houses in Timber Creek as McMansions, implying that they were cheaply made status symbols. I had to admit that there appeared to be truth to her assessment from the way the drywall seemed to have just been blown away by the wind, with bright pink insulation hanging out of the top of the damaged wall. Yellow police tape had been wrapped around the base of the house, and a fluorescent orange sign had been fixed on the front door: CONDEMNED.

There were bricks, of course. They were scattered all over the front lawn and the space between the Portnoys’ house and the next amid family photos, kitchen plates, underwear, pages of books, fridge magnets, pillow stuffing… just about every kind of household tchotchke and kitchen accessory imaginable. There were bricks everywhere. They were more orange in color than red, but I picked one up from the Portnoys’ front lawn and slipped it into the tote bag I’d brought with me.

Standing there, in their front yard, I could see directly into what remained of Mischa’s purple bedroom on the second floor, right next door to Amanda’s room. Her bed had been carried by the wind close to where the floorboards had been torn up, and it looked like another strong gust might blow it down to the living room. Her closet doors had been torn off the hinges and were long gone. As I carefully picked through some of the detritus in the grass, I thought it was shameful that no one had come by to clean all of this up and store it for Mischa. But then, who would? Prowling through a family’s belongings out on their lawn wasn’t any less intrusive than breaking into their home.

Just as I was about to walk back to the side gate, I noticed a photo on the ground as I almost stepped on it. As I bent to reach for it, I realized it was one of those goofy old-timey fake Western photos that you can have taken at the theme parks in Wisconsin Dells. In it, Mischa, Olivia, and Candace, all around thirteen years old, were dressed as Depression-era gangsters with newsboy caps and blazers. Mischa was chomping on a cigar and holding a fake machine gun. Candace’s wide smile revealed braces on her teeth. They must have had it taken on our eighth-grade trip; I had a similar photo of myself posing with Cheryl and Erin somewhere at home.

My connection to Jennie had only been broken for a day, but I already missed the tingling sensation she’d send me whenever I needed to be mindful of my surroundings or take notice of something. Although I’d gotten a creepy sense that my stumbling across that photo was no accident, I still shouted when a floorboard in Amanda’s bedroom gave way behind me. Her nightstand crashed to the first floor, and the WHAM it made upon impact stopped my heart.