I point at the direction of the athletic field. The team is dribbling balls around orange cones. “Does it bother you that you’re not on the soccer team?”

“No. I’ll play next year. Once I’ve fixed everything.”

“You’ve?”

Her lopsided grin returns. “Okay. I mean we.”

“I still don’t know about this.”

Her grin falters a little but doesn’t disappear. “Can I show you something? It might help you make up your mind.”

“Fine,” I say, and it feels like opening another box.

Eight

Quinn

Dear Parker,

Cupcake misses you.

She purrs all the time, which confused me at first, because I didn’t get how she could be so happy. Like I know she’s a cat, so she probably doesn’t really understand what happened, but I also think she does. Because cats know all things.

But then I remembered that Cora told me once that humans think cats purr because they’re happy, but really cats purr for attention. It’s their way of saying, “Hi, notice me,” and, “I need a hug,” and, “I want you around.”

It’s their way of saying, “Hey, don’t leave me alone.”

Why did you leave Cupcake alone? Why did you stop loving her?

I’ll never forget the first day I saw that her food bowl was empty. I don’t know how long it had been empty. I figured you just forgot.

But you didn’t forget. I started feeding Cupcake after that.

Your sister,

Quinn

I lead Cora into the woods. She talks the entire time. I’d actually forgotten how much the girl can talk.

“Are you sure?” she says for the fifteenth time. “We’re not supposed to walk through the forest preserve.”

I hop over an exposed tree root and turn around to hold out my hand to help Cora. She surprises me by taking it.

“It’ll be fine,” I reassure her, also for the fifteenth time. “No one comes out here.”

“Hikers do.”

“So let’s pretend to be hikers.”

“But we’re not hikers.”

I let the argument drop after that. In exactly one second, she picks up again.

“So where are you taking me, anyway?”

I keep walking. Cora’s footsteps are heavy behind me, crunching on stray twigs, so I know she’s still following. The afternoon sunlight filters through the trees, making the floor of the forest turn a golden glowing brown. The air is crisp, a slight chill that wakes up your face.

“Come on, Quinn,” Cora says. “This isn’t funny.”

“I wasn’t telling a joke.”

Her footsteps stop, so I turn around. She’s standing there with her arms crossed. “You have to tell me where we’re going.”

“Your backpack looks like it weighs a million pounds,” I say.

She pinches her lips together. Our preschool teacher called that particular expression a fish face. “If you’re not careful, your face will get stuck like that, Miss Hamed,” Mrs. Tanner would say. Cora got scared that her face actually would get stuck like that and Grams and I had to talk her down.