Luca went to work and saw Anika whenever he got a moment during the day. I took Sam to Rosebud so often that I swore I could see the 787 bus timetable when I closed my eyes at night.

At the hospital it was always the same—Anika in bed or trying to walk the hallways, Sam getting better about hugging her tighter, and Nora’s curtain always drawn, the TV a low hum in the background. I hadn’t seen her in the garden for days.

During the week, Jed, Sam, and I hung out, sometimes with Aidan and Keira too. We rode our bikes to the Athenaeum Cinema on Ocean Beach Road, at Sorrento Park on Hotham Road, or at the skate park near our school.

Sometimes Keira and I would break away from the others and do our own thing together. Once upon a time we would have played with our Barbies or endless rounds of having our fortunes told with cootie catchers. But those school holidays the two of us wandered up and down the pharmacy aisles debating the better Lip Smacker flavor—Berry Jelly Donut or Candy Confetti—before going back to Keira’s house, where her mom always seemed to have a fresh batch of honey joys or chocolate crackles ready for us to eat on the floor of her bedroom.

“Do you miss being an only child?” Keira asked me one cold afternoon when we’d left the boys to their brain freezes and Slurpees at the skate park. We’d already had what she called a “deep and meaningful” about what my period was like, since I’d confessed to her that mine had come months ago and she was still waiting for hers. I was both relieved and not when she changed the subject.

I shrugged and chewed the gooey honey joy still in my mouth before answering. “Sometimes,” I said, and then I thought about it some more. “I have to wait a lot longer to use the bathroom in the morning now.”

Keira scrunched up her nose and I laughed.

“I mean, there’s just a lot less space and a lot more people.”

She nodded like she understood. “But it’s kinda like you’ve got this instant family now, right? Must be so bizarre for you!”

I opened my mouth, about to say that Pop, Luca, and I were always a family, and Anika, Sam, and Drumlin just made us a bigger one. But instead I popped another honey joy in my mouth so I wouldn’t have to answer her.

Keira was an only child—the only other only child in our year, and it was the thing we bonded over when we first became sometimes-friends.