I wanted to believe Dad was perfect, fearless, strong until the end. Just like I wanted to believe Mama was that, too. But maybe he realized, later in life, that his man on the moon detachment was a weakness. While he was wrapped up in his parallel universe, packed chock-full of otherworldly Willy Wonka–ish delights that weren’t for us mere mortals, he missed so much.

Still: Why beg us to solve this great mystery and exclude a detail like this?

“It’s like the only person who really cares about us is Mina,” I mutter under my breath.

And that’s when I remember: Dad isn’t the only one we love who’s withheld details from us. And neither is Mama.

My brother told me. He wouldn’t lie to me.

Teddy, who programmed Mina to record. Sweet Teddy, who always knows so much more than he lets on.

NONI

We take the apartment elevator down at noon sharp (which requires wrangling Tai out of her exploded suitcases) and find the Maybach purring at the curb. Teddy peeks his grinning head out, and as his body follows, Tai squeals and giggles, completely forgetting our midnight pact to be dead serious until Teddy tells us the full truth about Mitso Arakit.

He is wearing a full-on Jigglypuff Pokémon onesie—the same costume he wore to her seventh birthday, saved in mint condition. I can’t help but snort while Tai whips out her phone. Jigglypuff was Tai’s favorite Pokémon of all time—this petulant pink puffball with huge blue eyes fringed in massive lashes, that huffled and pouted, that sang people to sleep and drew on their faces. I raise a brow and smack my lips, thick with the new lipstick Tai just smeared on them.

“Please tell me you’re wearing this to lunch,” she tells Teddy, sliding into the backseat beside him, and I follow. “I’ve perished. Really. This is my ghost.”

My sister’s savantlike ability to lighten the mood—when it doesn’t deserve lightening—never fails to surprise me. Teddy peels off the Jigglypuff suit like a hooded Snuggie, and I lean in to hug him. He smells like tobacco, like he always does. But it’s cologne, or body wash, or something, because he doesn’t smoke.

“If I wore this, they’d never let me back into the restaurant,” he says, laughing. “And it’s the best on the island—a really old-school spot. It took me five years to convince the old minister of foreign affairs to bring me as a guest, and it took me ten subsequent visits to charm my way into a limited-membership seat. One of Antella Arnoix’s sour sisters almost had a heart attack when she saw my ass in there in jeans.”