Outside, the auction had started, but Nate had chosen to stay in the house, away from the bidding. From where he sat at the top of the stairs, he watched Junie move through the rooms silently, touching the windowsills, stroking the counter, flushing the toilet in the bathroom, turning the water on and off. She opened a cupboard, closed it. Opened it again. “That’s where we kept the Oreos,” she said, as if she were visiting a museum.

He walked into his parents’ bedroom. Only one dresser remained and his mother’s little makeup table with the mirror attached, where Junie used to sit and play movie star. He was turning to go when a woman he didn’t recognize stepped out of the closet.

“Oh,” she said. “I thought there might be more stuff in here. Sorry.” She hurried down the stairs.

There were marks on the wall next to the door, where his father had measured the two of them every January first; the spot on the rug where Junie had spilled India ink when she tried dying one of her horses black to look more like Pie in National Velvet There was more, but he’d had enough.

Nate went back downstairs and out the door. He would’ve liked to go inside the barn one more time, but not with all the people there.

He walked out past the implement shed, away from the crowd and the crackling of the auctioneer’s PA system, into which someone kept repeating “Testing, testing, testing.” He stood on the spot where he and his father and sister had camped out to watch meteor showers. A girl was sitting in the grass, her hair a wild, frizzy corona around her head. Naomi.

“I got a ride from someone who was coming out,” she said. “I thought you might need a friend.”

“We didn’t win the science fair,” he told her. “We didn’t even get a lousy honorable mention.”

“I know,” she said. “So that means no Butte. And no Warm Springs.”

“Not for now, anyway. I’ll figure something out.”

“How’s your little sister?”

“The way you’d think. How about you?”

“Same kind of deal,” she said. “I just keep reminding myself that I am not going to let my parents ruin my life. Eventually, I get to make my own choices.”

“I’ll be going to a new school,” Nate said.

They sat there for a couple of minutes, not saying anything.

“In the boys’ room they wrote this stuff that said you were my girlfriend,” he said finally.

“Probably the same type of junk they wrote in the girls’ room. If it was me doing it, I would have made the drawings lots funnier.”

“I just want you to know, I didn’t cross it out,” he said. “It wasn’t like I thought that was so embarrassing.”

“Even though we’re not boyfriend-girlfriend,” she added.