“Dude, I’m just here in this totally new place, meeting people, and it’s like with this distance and without context, it feels so clear to me that we don’t communicate well and we’re too judgmental and bossy with one another. So clear. But then I imagine us being any different and I just draw a blank.”

Horse nosed at the iron gate in front of a beautifully painted teal-and-cream house, and a chipmunk darted away.

“I was listening to this podcast the other day,” Maggie said. “I forget the name, but the lady was talking about how with individuals, it’s fairly simple to change our behavior because we’re only answering to ourselves. We can integrate new habits and thoughts and change our perspectives, boom, boom, boom. But then it gets super more complicated when you add in other people, because you don’t have control over them, and the dynamics that you’ve established and ingrained over years of being together kick back in. It’s like grooves in mud or something. You can try and drive a different way—crisscross them or whatever—but with the grooves there, the easiest thing is always gonna be to slide back into them.”

“It never really seems to bother you, though.”

Maggie snorted. “It bothers me,” she said definitively. “But I just think of it as the my family part of my life, and it’s only one part.”

“I don’t think I have that sense of discrete parts. To me, it’s like this constant background noise. Or, no, not background—more like fog, and if I wander close to it, I get lost in the fog even if I’m doing my own thing.”

Greta turned the corner at the antique store/bookstore that was never open and headed toward the river.

“Wanna know a secret?” Maggie asked.

“Obviously.”

“I’m not coming back to Owl Island this summer. Naveen and I are gonna drive cross-country, then stay with his brother in LA, then make our way back east via Canada before fall semester. I’m not moving back after I graduate either. That’s why I can’t leave now. I’m saving up.”

Greta felt her eyebrows pull high and her mouth open. She was making a face of horror, even though what she felt was excitement for her sister. She forced her eyebrows back to neutral and let herself smile.

“That sounds really fun,” she said.

“Right?! Anyway, don’t tell anyone. I’m gonna wait till the last minute to tell them because I don’t wanna deal with it. Naveen’s brother’s awesome. He cuts hair for work, and then he does these paintings where he takes a picture of how the cut hair falls on the floor and sees it as shapes to guide the paint. It sounds disgusting but they’re amazing. I’ll send you his website.”

“Sounds great, Mags.”