Connor’s small hand squeezed my shoulder tight before I could respond, and immediately I felt my anger begin to disappear.

Despite how thin and pale Connor always seemed to be, he was probably the happiest little kid I knew. He had this mess of brown hair that stuck up everywhere despite how much Mom tried to tame it, a bunch of freckles, and he was always smiling.

Connor didn’t know much sign, but he gave it his all whenever we were around each other. A lot of the time he would write notes to me, so we had a special spiralbound notebook covered in Marvel comic book stickers for that exact purpose.

HELLO, Connor signed to me again. MISS YOU TODAY.

SAME, I signed with a grin, then said aloud, “How was your first day of school, squirt?”

Connor was one of the few people I didn’t mind using my voice in front of. He was too young to remember what it was like when I was still hearing, so to him I’d always been his Deaf big sister.

“Awesome!” I watched Connor say excitedly. He gave another big thumbs-up with his toothy smile. “I have . . . new friend . . . teacher put us . . . name . . . Trevor. Likes . . . Spider-Man!”

“That’s great!” I said, thinking that at least Connor enjoyed his new school even if I hated mine.

A handful of minutes later we were pulling up into the driveway of our new home.

This house was smaller than our home in New Jersey, but it was still cute—painted green with a nicely kept front lawn and a big sweetgum tree out front. It was maybe the one thing I liked about moving so far.

Inside was still a total mess, with us navigating around the stacks of moving boxes everywhere. We’d gotten the couches arranged in the living room and the entertainment stand set up with the TV, but everything else was still chaos.

I started in on my homework once all the groceries were put away, setting up camp in the living room with Connor. He didn’t have any homework and was perfectly content turning on some cartoons and plopping down on the couch, making sure to turn on closed captioning for me. I was caught up outlining the chapter in my AP US History textbook about corporations in early twentieth century America when Mom popped her head into the living room to tell us dinner was ready.

DINNER, Connor signed at me when I didn’t immediately get up, making the letter “D” with his fingers and tapping the side of his jaw.

Mom already had the table set in the dining room just off the kitchen when Connor and I joined her. A shrimp pasta with a side salad was a welcome change from all the take-out we’d been having since we moved.

I sat across from Mom for any necessary interpreting and dug into my plate of food.