“I’d love to go to Iceland. It would be a great place to see the northern lights.” My mom and I had seen the northern lights together once. It was when we were living on the resort in Maine. There had been dozens of people partying at our cabin that night, but she came to find me and wrapped me up in a huge blanket and took me out on the porch of the cabin so we could watch together. It makes my throat ache to think about.

Willow pulls her knees in tighter. “I read about a place there called the Five Million Star Hotel. Every room is in a clear bubble so you can look at the stars and northern lights all night.”

I feel a tiny ping in my chest. Mom would love that. “Seriously?”

“It’s on the Golden Circle, which is a route you can drive in Iceland. It’s one hundred and eighty-six miles and you can see three of Iceland’s most popular natural attractions.”

I remember absolutely everything, but her knowing the exact mileage of the route surprises me. “Wow. You weren’t joking. You really do know what you’re talking about.”

Now her smile gets self-conscious, and she looks down at her sneakers. “Sorry. I get a little, ah, excited, when I talk about travel.”

I wasn’t actually expecting Willow to open up to me, and my body is humming with the happiness of it. “It’s cool you know exactly what you want to do.”

She shrugs. “I don’t have all the details worked out yet. I mean, obviously, I’m going to have to find a job that either allows me to travel or pays me to do it. And I know I want to go to college, so I’m going to have to figure out how that fits in. Right before I came here I was actually trying to talk my mom into letting me spend my senior year abroad. But it didn’t go very well.” She shakes her head, then looks up at me. “What about you? What’s the thing you want with a burning intensity?”

The answer is obvious. To find my mom. But I know that isn’t the kind of answer she’s looking for. She wants me to say something like Become a skydiving instructor in Australia or Start my own tech business and live on the beach. Things other people our age are interested in. The problem is that I’ve never really felt like I could relate to most other people our age because they’re walking around with no idea of what it’s like to be missing something as crucial as their mom. Still, I’m up for trying. I try to imagine what I’d want to do if I had a completely different life, the kind that allowed space for anything.