Oren shrugged and tossed the tissue into the bin before he typed some more.

Would you show me how you made them?

“You mean the flowers? Like, you want me to show you how to do paper quilling?”

Yes. Maybe you can help me make something like the flowers but bigger. Something I can keep forever.

I remembered what my mom had said about therapists using art to help kids work through their grief.

“What are you thinking? Like, a whole picture?”

He nodded.

“Totally! I can for sure help you!” That it might actually help him made me want to do it even more. “I’m working on a picture right now. It’s got a meadow and other flowers and stuff. I can show you that and how to curl and glue the paper and everything.”

Can we run through the sprinkler first?

I wanted to get started right away but I needed to go at his pace. If he wanted to run through the sprinkler, we should run through the sprinkler.

“Of course,” I said, showing how patient I could be. “We can quill later.”

After I taped up Oren’s cast and we put on sunscreen, we went outside and turned on the sprinkler. We played around, running through the water and blasting Nate’s water cannons at each other. We had so much fun that we didn’t even realize what time it was until Mom poked her head out the back door and told us to turn off the water before we flooded the neighborhood.

When I looked down, my feet were squishing in puddles in the grass. Whoops!

“Also, you need to come get ready for dinner,” she said. “We need a salad to go with that amazing mac and cheese.”

“Five minutes,” I called out just as I was hit with a stream of water from behind. “Ugh! He got me again!”

Mom gave me a look, but then smiled at Oren. She was clearly happy that he was having a good time, which made two of us. Three if you counted him.

“Fine,” Mom said, pretending to be exasperated. “I’ll do up the salad, so you can make it ten.”

We made it twenty, but no one complained.

We went inside and dried off. By the time I had changed into dry clothes, Oren’s uncle had arrived and was sitting in the kitchen.

“Hi, Jared,” I said. “How are you doing?”

“Hey, Evie. I’m good, thanks.” He gave me a weak smile.

He looked kind of awful. Not much different than he had on the day I’d first met him at the funeral home. But with neater hair. I felt bad for him. I figured it must be tough to have to go on doing normal things when your world has been shattered. I wondered if he was seeing a therapist. Oren had lost his parents, but Jared had lost his sister and was suddenly responsible for a kid he barely knew.