Sometimes I choose the wrong words. But how could anyone understand, even if I chose the right ones? I am the only person who connected with Mama in this way. I am the only person who found her secret message to us, after a decade apart. I am the only person who can reclaim the joy we felt here.

I am the only one who knows for certain that Mama is alive and on Viloxin at this very moment. But I remember my promise to Noni after reading Dad’s letter: Tell no one.

“Enough about White Fox for now, okay?” I say, sounding and feeling like a faux-jolly talk show host. “Let’s just remember the good times, all right? I refuse to remember this place as anything but happy, Saxim. Because I loved growing up here. On Viloxin, and at Stökéwood. Remember the pool games we used to play? And the treasure hunts Mama would set up? Remember grade school, with the set lunches and the uniform with the hood, and learning the alphabet with the calligraphy brush? I mean, it was … pure life, in a way you just don’t get now. I wouldn’t trade those days for the world.”

I stop speaking—pure life? Am I high?—but I’m breathing hard, and the air looks speckled and strange around Saxim, who is silently watching me. When I stare back, she averts her eyes and looks out the window, scratching at her sleeve.

“What?” I ask. My hands are shaking again, and I don’t know if it’s the radioactive tea, jet lag, or nerves. I need Saxim to be normal, even as I acknowledge I don’t know what that means. Bright? Happy? Reassuring? Responsive? “You need to tell me what you’re thinking, Saxim. Please.”

It takes another full minute of silence before she opens her mouth. “What is with this American obsession with being happy all the time? We’re not filming for an audience, Tai.”

I swallow hard and feel tears prickle my sockets. “What? What do you mean?”

She says nothing. Her eyes could swallow lakes, could swallow entire underwater worlds.

“Please, say something.”

She smooths one eyebrow carefully, slowly. “I love you, Tai—I always will, but I won’t watch you act when it’s just the two of us,” she says.

My breath stops. For one sticky moment, I feel caught, exposed, wounded.

“If you want honesty and company, I will always give it,” she adds, pushing her hair behind her ears. “But I won’t help you delude yourself.”

My lips are dry.

“Do you want to know what I remember from our childhood?” she says. “What I really, truly remember?”