I fluff up the bed where she sleeps to make it look cozy. She sleeps in the attic because this is the best room for looking at the ocean, but her real room is downstairs. So I’ve decorated this one for her, lining the shelf with photos of my dad that I found under her bed, one of my mom and dad together, one of me at school, a certificate of archery (from her closet) from a summer camp I guess she used to go to.

I don’t have my mom’s artistic skills, but I’ve also painted lots of things on the walls for her. There’s something I’ve labeled Big Things about Rosie, which I’ve illustrated with colored markers. It stretches across years, and it’s where I write the things I think are big and important: the date when I lost my first tooth, the date of a trip we took to Adventure Land with my class, the time I won the story contest at the local library, the day I won the spelling bee. I’ve decorated it with flowers and exclamation points so that it will get her attention. I’ve also painted a growth chart keeping track of my height (which goes up only very slowly—I’m the shortest person in my class). I’ve also drawn a family tree on the wall, though it’s all just blanks except for me and my mom and dad. I don’t know about the rest of my family. I guess we don’t really have one.

Still, as strange as it may sound, none of it means anything to her—not Big Things about Rosie, not the family tree. It’s as if none of it’s there. Then again, most of the time it’s as if I’m not here either.

“Tell me about the day I was born,” I used to say to her, before I knew better.

I knew the when and where of my birth, but I wanted to know what it had felt like to see me for the first time. I wanted to hear my mom say that my arrival was like being handed a pot of gold and a deed to the most beautiful island in Hawaii (which is what Germ’s mom says about her).

But eventually I gave up. Because she would only ever look at me for a long time and then say something like, “Honestly, how could I remember something like that?” Flat, exasperated, as if I’d asked her who had won the 1976 World Series.