“It’s colic,” my mom said, as she bounced and jiggled the angry purple creature that was my brother. “He’ll grow out of it.”

“When?”

“Don’t start, Swallow! Don’t fucking start.” And then she burst into tears.

I’d really misjudged my new sibling. I liked him even less than the other ones. What did he have to be so miserable about? He had my mom, my dad, and Gwen at his beck and call. They spent every moment of the day trying to make him comfortable: feeding him, burping him, changing him, swaddling him, swinging him, singing to him, and taking him for walks and car rides, even boat rides. Nothing pleased Eckhart. He was an asshole. An infant King Joffrey.

To remove myself from the noise and chaos, I spent more and more time at the pottery studio. I had nowhere else to go. The tourist trade had dwindled with the summer and so had my employment. Jamie had apologized profusely, but she couldn’t afford to keep me on full-time. I only worked weekends now, or the occasional midweek shift if she had plans or was away. It was virtually impossible to find off-season employment on the island, but I had a plan.

I had been working in the studio several days a week for seven months. My wheel work was passable, but I didn’t have Freya’s delicate touch, I couldn’t replicate her unique creations. But I’d discovered a talent for handwork, pinch pots to be precise. I had made a perfect little cup and then decided to add an oversize lid that made it look like a toadstool. It was a decorative, whimsical piece, but when you removed the cap, it was a perfect container for earrings, pills, or paper clips.

“That is so adorable,” Freya had gushed. “If you make a few of these, I bet Jamie would sell them.”

“Really?”

“I’ll talk to her,” she said, with a wink. “I got you the job, didn’t I?”

I let myself imagine a lucrative toadstool pinch-pot business. Jamie would sell them at her store, and eventually, I’d take a trip to the mainland and find some retailers there. Photography had been my favorite class at school, and I’d excelled at it. With those skills and Freya’s social media expertise, we would build the brand online. They would take off, become a trend. I’d continue to make them by hand, each one unique, expensive, a collector’s item. I’d taken to adding intricate embellishments—a butterfly, a bumblebee, a caterpillar—so each piece was one-of-a-kind. I envisioned toadstool pinch-pot world domination.

No one would work harder or longer than I would—24-7 if necessary. The studio was already my favorite place to be, and now, it had become my refuge. Unbeknownst to my hosts, I had been sleeping in the unfinished attic space. It was accessible through a trapdoor in the ceiling that had a drop-down ladder. The room was only about five feet high at its center, and I had to share it with a few dusty cardboard boxes, some bits of lumber, and a length of ductwork. But they made better roommates than Eckhart. (Since I no longer had to get up for school in the morning, my parents had decided I should share a room with my constantly wailing brother. They probably hoped it was the kick I needed to leave the nest.)