“My mom.” He takes hold of his cuff with his free hand and shuffles it back on his wrist so that the wings disappear again. “So … when I was a kid, I wanted to believe my mother was a bird. Kind of like your fox, but not. Because the parts of herself she loved most would … disappear. Migrate somewhere. But she almost always returned to us—at least she did back then. As I got older, more and more of her was lost for good, and there was nothing I could do, except…” He sighs again, a proper sigh this time, and I feel this waterfall of shivering thrills.

So the tattoo is more than a way of missing someone. It’s a way to honor the best in someone.

I think of how Tai and I retreat into the moments where we miss Mama least, because we fear our grief.

Tai feels the loss in quiet moments—when Mama would have been a soother, a nurturer. Mama grounded her, despite all she was known for. She gave her wisdom.

Whereas I—I feel the loss most in the loud moments. I wish she could be there to parse through the noise, to guide me and share in the good. Maybe then I wouldn’t view every overwhelming moment as a free fall.

I shut my eyes and half lean into him, so my shoulders almost touch his chest. He stiffens, then relaxes.

“Can I see you again?” he asks.

I don’t reply. I don’t mention that it’s foolish of me to even consider that. I don’t mention, either, that I feel hundreds of butterfly-type insects (let’s be honest, they’re probably moths) fluttering and nibbling at the inside of my stomach when I’m around him, and that I never understood what that absurd expression meant until now, and that I would’ve been way too ashamed to even think it before meeting him. But I think he knows, because when I raise my chin, his forest eyes shine.

A car pulls up nearby, tires crunching over a plastic bottle and bursting the moment. I look around for the familiar self-driving car, as Hérrakí’s hand closes around mine.

“Do you need a ride?” he asks, as the lit-up signs flash against the dead-eyed businessmen hobbling around in their sweat-stained suits in the damp dark. “My uncle said he’d pick us up.”

I fumble for my phone, a voice mail message from an unknown caller pinging onto my screen.

It’s Tai.

“Dad was hiding something from us, Nons,” she says. “Something big. I can’t tell you on a voice mail. Don’t spill a word about anything to Hérrakí, no matter how charming he is, and whatever you do, don’t—”

My phone goes dead.

TAI

“Mina!” I grip her unfeeling plastic shoulders, and her panel glitches, then lights up with dozens of yawning cartoon batteries.