Prologue

41.342807, -70.743469. That’s where I live in numbers.

Every place on this earth has an address in numbers. It’s so people who don’t speak the same language can tell each other where they live. So they can find each other anywhere in the world. But that doesn’t make any sense, because how would they even ask the question in the first place? How could someone who speaks Chinese ask someone who speaks French where they live and expect an answer?

“Just drop it please, Cove,” says Mom when I try and explain how the whole idea is flawed. That’s my name. Cove. Cove Bernstein.

“No, it’s cool,” says her boyfriend. His name is Sean, and he’s the reason we’re even having this conversation. Because if Sean’s allowed to come to breakfast without a shirt on, then I’m allowed to ask why he has long numbers tattooed up and down his arm. Sean tells me that the numbers represent all the important places he’s been in his life.

He goes down his arm saying the names. Bali. India. Thailand. Hawaii.

Sean has been a lot of places.

I have only been here. On this island. Martha’s Vineyard.

Sean does not have the numbers for Martha’s Vineyard on his arm. I think that’s one reason why Mom slams her bowl into the sink and says, “Can we please stop talking about numbers.”

But I have one more question.

“Why didn’t you just use the real names? That way people would know where you’ve been.”

Sean shrugs his bare shoulders and leans back in his chair so that he’s balancing on the two rear legs. It’s weird to see him sitting in our kitchen chairs, the way his large body covers the entire wood frame so he looks like a genie floating on air. I’m used to seeing Mom sitting in those chairs, or my best friend, Nina. They both like to crisscross their legs on the seat, only Mom sits up very straight and rests her hands in her lap. Nina kind of slumps over and twists her long hair.

But both Mom and Nina take up the right amount of space on the chair. Not like Sean. Although Sean does answer my question, which is not something Mom always does. “I just like keeping some things to myself,” he says. “If people know where you’ve been, they start thinking they can predict where you’ll go next.”

Last night I heard Mom yelling at Sean. She called him stupid and naive and irresponsible. But this morning at breakfast, I decide that Sean’s actually pretty smart. He knows about patterns. How things can fit together and become something new, something totally different from what they used to be when they were all alone. When they were just individual pieces.

I think Sean would understand why I did what I did.

I think he would get it.

For a second I almost tell him.

But I can’t tell anyone.

Not yet.