They arrived in boxes on a rainy August morning, their ETA marked on their parents’ calendar with the words Joey & Lacy’s Birthday, and they emerged into the world at ten and fourteen, a memory they often talked about in their separate beds.

What did he remember?

Rumbling, Joey said. The room’s darkness reminded him of the truck, though he wasn’t sure if that was a real memory. Had that been real? What about the Grand Canyon? They’d ridden mules down to the base, set up tents, and spent the night by the Colorado River.

“Think about it, how old were you?” Lacy asked.

“Eight.”

“You weren’t even launched yet.”

“What about the blizzard, then?” The cars had been buried beneath the snow, and when their mother opened the back door, there was ice stacked higher than him.

“Never happened,” Lacy said.

Joey marveled at the way memories became smaller once you realized they weren’t real. Like perfectly contained snow globes, ready to be placed alongside the other globes of elementary school, sleepaway camp, and vacations their family would’ve taken had there been enough money.

Money was the reason their parents gave when presenting them with their beds in the shared room. The beds were neatly made, a stack of towels resting by their pillows, and on each a present: a dress for Lacy, a soccer ball for Joey, both with a small handmade card, the edges crooked from their mother’s scissors. “Welcome to our family.”

This wasn’t how it was done in real families, Lacy said. Boys and girls didn’t share the same room. And their parents understood that, but they couldn’t afford a bigger house. There were overdue statements for the children amassing on the dining room table, alongside electricity, heating, and mortgage bills. So Joey and Lacy shared the room, their beds on either side, and they spent their pre-dreaming hours trying to remember the past.

“Was the UP trip real?” Joey asked. They’d rented kayaks and paddled to Pictured Rocks. Dad had tipped over his kayak and splashed into Lake Superior, and his shoes had squished all day.

“Of course that happened. We have photos,” Lacy said.

Above them, stars arced across the water-stained ceiling. Their mother had bought the night-light after they’d returned from the UP. It hadn’t been Christmas or his birthday, just a sale in the toy aisle of Target where she’d let him wander. When she came to get him, he’d shown her the night-light and she’d looked at the price, then placed it in the cart for no other reason than to make him happy.

That, at least, was a real memory, filled entirely with love.