I glance at Otter before looking back at Dom. “What is?”

“Izzie,” he says. “Her, being here. Especially with—you’ve got twins coming.”

“So?”

He shakes his head. “It’s that easy for you.” It’s not a question this time.

“She’s our sister. Of course it is.”

He smiles ruefully. “Yeah. You—even after all this time, you still surprise me.”

I squint at him. “What did you think we’d do? Put her out on the streets?”

He shakes his head. “’Course not. But you never thought of anything else. She was always going to stay here.”

“She’s our family,” I tell him. “She’s ours now.”

“You have no idea, do you?” Dom says.

“No.” Otter’s smiling at me. I think I’m missing something. “He doesn’t. It’s one of those things. It’s always been like that.”

I roll my eyes. “If you’re done speaking in code, we have shit to do.”

They both laugh at me.

THREE DAYS later, Otter and I are an hour outside Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. My window’s rolled down, and my arm is outside the window, hand moving up and down with the wind. Izzie’s staying with Ty and Dom while we’re gone. She didn’t want to come. I only asked her once. Ty was the same.

“I’ll stay here,” he told me, averting his eyes. “Someone needs to keep an eye on her.”

“Sure, Kid,” I’d responded easily. “If that’s what you want.”

“Unless, you think—do you need me to go? With you?”

“Nah. I’ve got Otter. And it’s better for her. I think. If you’re still here.”

“You okay?” Otter asks me now, hand firm on my thigh.

“Yeah,” I tell him, because I don’t know what else to say.

PEOPLE SAY that they have memories of when they were two or three years old. I don’t know if I believe that. I think they want so hard to remember—that stories they’re told somehow become ingrained into them as their own—that they convince themselves it’s not a story they’re remembering but an actual memory.

There are bits and pieces buried deep in my mind. Hazy flashes that are nothing but fuzz where I’m little and she’s there, and she’s saying Knock it off, Derrick, or You’re gonna hurt yourself if you don’t get off that chair.

It’s clear, though, when I was four. Maybe five.

There were stretches of days when she didn’t have a glass in her hand, the amber liquid swishing around, ice clinking together. Days when her eyes were a little brighter and she’d laugh a little louder. Days when she would put her hand on the back of my neck and squeeze, and I’d grin at her through a mouthful of Pop-Tarts, something I rarely got to have.