“Hope?” I can hear my words slurring with sleep. “That’s not real at all.”

“Of course it is,” she replies. “Without hope, what does anything else matter?”

I am just on the edge of drifting off when she holds up the card she’d been peering at. “This one is my favorite.”

I fall asleep looking at the Star.

When I wake the next morning, light is streaming in through the window over the sink with too much enthusiasm. I squint against it, sitting up in bed. Remembering the night before, I look to the chair where I last saw Aimee, but it’s empty. In her place lies the Star card from my deck. I pick it up. On the back she has scrawled Hope in lipstick from our bathroom. I figure I should be vexed that a drunk has defiled my family’s prized deck, but there is something endearing in the gesture, like an autograph. I don’t quite know how to classify Aimee—part party girl, part tarot goddess. But I know why she liked the Star. In her way, she is the Star.

I smile on my way to the bathroom, only to find that Aimee has stolen a bottle of Vicodin, my only hairbrush, my mother’s new suede boots, and a six-pack of beer from the fridge.

I laugh so hard I end up on my knees with tears the size of mosquitos coursing down my cheeks. By the time I can collect myself, I’m not even angry anymore. I hope she likes the boots. I just wish she’d left the hairbrush.

XXXII.

ANOTHER DAY AND NIGHT PASS WITH NO WORD. I TEXT my mother three more times. The first text is much like the rest. Where are you, Mary? Can’t you at least tell me where you are, so I know you’re okay?

By the second, my despair is peeking through. Mom. Please just text back.

The third becomes personal. I type I miss you only to delete it, feeling angry that she’s even put me in this position. Finally, I send I’m sorry.

I don’t know what I’m apologizing for. She’s the one in the wrong. But I’ve no doubt she’s holed up, imagining some slight on my part, some offense she’s invented that keeps her from replying. Maybe if I concede she’ll give in and come home.

Tomorrow, the weekend is upon us. I call Daniel and make plans to drive to Moony’s town to scatter her ashes. I can’t think of anywhere else she’d want to be, so I decide on her own front yard.