“It was an accident! I knocked the telescope out of place.” Scrolling . . . scrolling . . . finally. A name.

Dr. Leo Lacamoire. Paid in cash.

Dad popped his head in. He was wearing a backward baseball cap and holding two sweatshirts. “Ready, Abs?”

We took off toward Fishtrap Park, where we could set up our telescope without any cabin lights getting in the way. As we walked past Eagle’s Nest, I glanced in the window, but the guy I now knew to be Dr. Leo Lacamoire wasn’t there. Instead, there was a tall black woman pacing the porch. She was older than Blair, but not as old as my mom.

“Excuse me?” The woman stopped abruptly and bounded down the steps. “Are you the owner of this place?”

Dad smiled. “That would be me. Gary McCourt.” He held out his hand and she shook it. My dad liked a firm handshake, and I could tell she delivered one.

“Simone Sinclair. We have an issue,” she said, looking concerned.

“An issue?” asked Dad.

“There’s a raccoon under the porch.” She pointed. “We heard him all night scratching at the door, trying to get in.”

“Hmm,” said Dad slowly. “A raccoon issue.”

“A big, fat, angry raccoon issue.”

That’s when I knew: Dr. Leo Lacamoire and Simone Sinclair? They weren’t from Wisconsin. Mom and Dad always rolled their eyes at the tourists who came and were surprised at things like raccoons or coyotes.

“What do they want us to do, Gary?” Mom had asked a million times. “Go out with a slingshot and personally eliminate every mosquito in the northern hemisphere? You’re in the woods. We have bugs here.”

“I don’t mean to cause, you know, a problem. It’s just really keeping my boss up all night,” said Simone. “And when he’s up all night, he’s not exactly a joy to be around. You know what I’m saying?”

“I do,” said Dad seriously. “But the raccoon hasn’t gotten into the cabin?”

“Well, no. But its nest or something has to be under the porch.”

“Den,” said Dad.

“What?”

“Raccoons live in dens, not nests,” he said. “But! Your point has been noted. I’ll get someone over here first thing tomorrow morning to do a clean sweep.”

“Thank you,” she said, pressing her hands together. “I really appreciate it. Seriously.”

We kept walking, mostly in silence. I liked the nighttime lake noises—the loons calling and the waves lapping and the thump, thump of our footsteps. When we got to Fishtrap Park, my dad got the telescope on the stand while I tipped my head back and looked up.

If you want to catch stars, here’s what you need to remember: you have to go somewhere dark. When I was a kid, we went on vacation to New York City. We couldn’t see a single star in the sky because of all the lights. There’s too much for them to compete with. You need to be in total darkness, where they’re the only things worth looking at. And once you find the perfect stargazing spot, those stars go on for miles and miles, sparkling and winking and dotting the sky. It’s like being in a whole new world when the stars are out, a world that doesn’t have homework or mean girls or mosquito bites. I loved the stars, and the planets, and anything to do with the sky. Jade always said she could never see any of the constellations, but she just didn’t know where to look. When she used to come along with Dad and me, her eyes were always on her phone, or down the road, as if waiting for something more interesting to pop out of nowhere. As if something could be more interesting than our very own galaxy.