Zadie had no strong feelings either way about sun hats, but she was looking forward to the trip Finn and she had planned. They were going to drive down to Galveston and spend a week drinking sweet tea and reading on the beach. Zadie had already gone to the library and checked out an embarrassingly large stack of romance novels.

For Zadie, it was a chance for her sister and her to reconnect. When Zadie still lived in their old neighborhood just north of San Antonio, she would take Finn out every Friday for frozen yogurt, but after she moved to Austin a year later, it wasn’t long before their weekly ritual became a monthly one. Now, if she was lucky, they saw each other a few times a year.

It’s not like either sister had overtly decided to cut ties with the other. Over time, they had just sort of drifted apart like unmanned canoes, or rather, Zadie had drifted while Finn stayed safely tied to the dock. Recently, Zadie had felt like she couldn’t even see the shore anymore. Her family was somewhere in the salty haze, so obscured that she sometimes doubted its very existence. It was during one of these moments of existential panic that she called up Finn and asked if she wanted to take a post-graduation trip with her.

In four days, she would have her family back (or what was left of it). They might not have been as close as they once were, but Finn belonged with her, not Steve or Kathy or anyone else.

Not even their mother.

Nora Wilder was a ghost to Zadie, and ghosts don’t exist.

Zadie unlocked her phone and texted Finn back:

HOW BIG ARE WE TALKING ON A SCALE OF FEDORA TO SOMBRERO?

Three typing bubbles came up on the screen, followed by a GIF of a shirtless, presumably inebriated man balancing a kiddie pool on his head.

CLASSY, she texted, then checked the time. It was almost five-thirty. Dustin would be home any minute. Zadie dragged her misshapen suitcase to the front door, then went back for her box of cassettes. As she picked it up, she felt a premonition rising in her gut. “Noooooo. Not now,” she groaned as the feeling intensified.

Zadie shut her eyes and hummed the first song that popped into her head: “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears. By the time she’d reached the second verse, the feeling had passed and she heaved a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted to know about right now was the future. She needed to get through the present first.

Look on the bright side. People were always peddling silver linings to her, ever since she was a kid. She’d said, “But I don’t have a dad.”

They’d said, At least you have a mom.

After her mom left, she’d said, “I don’t have a mom.”