I didn’t even have time to catch my breath. One minute Sam was there, handing me a bouquet of roses as we exited through the side stage doors, and the next minute he was on the ground with another boy on top of him.

Aunt Abigail and a woman I’d never seen before were blowing their noses into hankies, and Selma was standing there looking like she’d just stepped off a fast-moving train. Then Mom came running out from stage left, skipping toward me with more flowers and saying, “You were wonderful.” But then she stopped, taking in the commotion all around us.

Off to the side, another boy was slumped down against the wall with his head in his hands. Everyone seemed to notice him at the same moment. Sam disentangled himself from the first and went over to the other one, who was older, sadder, and more disheveled. Sam kneeled, burying his head in the boy’s shoulder. The words he’d been mumbling grew louder and louder as Sam hugged him: “I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead.”

Jack. Hank. It was like walking from a dark room into bright sunlight. My eyes kept trying to adjust, unable to focus on seeing these three brothers, all finally together.

And just when Sam had started to lose faith that he would actually find them.

“It’s beginning to feel like a needle in a haystack,” he’d said, as soon as we were back in Fairbanks. Mom was overly excited to have us and had made her famous lasagna for a “welcome home” meal. Afterward as we cleaned up in the kitchen, she stressed that Sam could stay as long as he needed to.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she told him.

“You have?” I asked.

“Oh Alyce, it’s not as if your father and I never talk.”

“You do?”

But she just swatted me playfully like I was kidding around.

“My sister works at the paper,” she told Sam. “If your brothers are in Fairbanks, she’ll be the first to know.”

He smiled and thanked her, but when she went back out to the dining room for more dirty plates, it was obvious his smile hadn’t been real.

I can tell what Sam’s feeling by the shadows that flit across his face; the way his eyes flash many shades of brown, like a spinning kaleidoscope, especially when he is thinking about his brothers.

“Aunt Abigail is on it,” I told him. “She’s a great reporter and she knows everything and everyone. Really, she’ll find them.”

He’d moved forward and draped the dish towel he was holding around my shoulders, pulled me right up to his face, and kissed me. I’d been waiting for that kiss for weeks, but it still caught me off guard. I didn’t know what to do with my soapy hands, so I ran them through his hair and kissed him back—hard. Just like I’d wanted to so many times before, on the flying bridge, in the Pelican, even covered in blood in the troll pit. “Salt,” he murmured. “I knew you’d taste salty.”

Apparently all of this caught my mother off guard, too, as she came barreling into the kitchen with another stack of plates that flew out of her arms, crashing to the floor and scaring the living daylights out of all of us.

I’m so busy remembering that kiss, I barely feel the tug on my arm pulling me back to the auditorium hallway. In front of me on the red flowered carpet, Sam and Hank are still holding on to each other. I can feel my mascara running down my cheeks.

“Hi,” says a blurry face pressing close to mine.

“Jack?”

The face nods.

“Did Sam give you that?” He points to the red rubber band sticking out from where I tried to hide it under my bun.

“He did.”

“Did you know it’s lucky?” he asks.

“That’s why I’m wearing it.”

“Did you save him?”

“I tried,” I say. “Maybe he saved me?”

“Yeah, that’s what we do, isn’t it?” Jack says. “We save each other.”

“You’re exactly how he described you,” I tell him, and he grins.

“You were amazing,” Selma says, stepping closer to Jack and me. Her smile is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on Selma’s face before. “Your audition, Alyce…it was perfect. You are definitely going to get in.” She’s holding a crumpled paper towel with her name on it and looks funny—punch-drunk.

“Thanks…what’s that?” I ask. She’s cradling it almost the same way I’m holding the bouquet of roses from Sam.

She presses it close to her chest, as if it’s a love letter. “Just something I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

I can’t wrap my mind around what’s made Selma act so un-Selma-like—normally it’s impossible to get her to stop talking—but nothing makes sense right now and my legs are cramping up. I need to go stretch but the emotion in the hallway is so thick, it would be easier to cut through the neck bone of a salmon than walk past all these people. Sam is whispering in Hank’s ear. Maybe he’s telling him the story of the orcas, and how he ended up here?

Sam must look so different to his brothers. I’m sure he’s changed a lot since they last saw him. My mother bought the clothes he’s wearing at Sears Roebuck two weeks ago, when we first arrived in Fairbanks, because all he had were Uncle Gorky’s old ones. I’m still getting used to seeing him in them myself.

Even when we first got here for the audition—was that just a few hours ago?—he seemed so out of place. Stiff, and more seasick than he ever looked on the boat. He gestured at my pointe shoes. “They look so weird on your feet.”

I thought so, too. “They’d look weird anywhere but hanging over the bunk during fishing season.”

Maybe he thought I still felt guilty, because he said, “Your dad doesn’t want you to live your life trying to please him. He really wants you to be happy.”

And then he leaned back in case that made me mad like it did the last time he’d said that.

But I get it now. I’d thought I was protecting my dad all this time, but I’m pretty sure he’s always just wanted me to be me.

For the first time, I danced like someone who knew what she wanted. It felt fearless, like I was letting nobody down, especially myself.

But even that doesn’t seem quite as important now, watching Hank and Sam. He was wrong about Hank being mad at him, or not worried. I add up every minute, hour, and day I spent with Sam, and it’s obvious that every one of them Hank spent thinking Sam was dead. I feel selfish, watching Hank try to come back from such a dark, dark place. I’m not sure I would ever stop crying if I were him.

“I had a feeling,” Jack says suddenly, watching me closely, “that there was someone like you out there with him.”

He hugs me.

“You were right,” I tell him. “Will Hank be okay?”

“Hank’s fine,” Jack says. “Or he will be.”

Jack has Sam’s eyes.

I’m so busy noticing Jack that I don’t realize Hank and Sam are no longer sitting on the floor until I feel a hand on my shoulder.

“Alyce, this is Hank,” Sam says. It seems impolite to stare at Hank’s tear-stained face and red, puffy cheeks. But he steps forward and hugs me, squishing the roses between us. He smells like miles and miles of mud-soaked road, mingled with sweat and a hint of lavender; beneath it all is the familiar musty smell of a boat. He gives me a squeeze, then steps back and says, “You’re a beautiful dancer. It almost killed me watching you.”

Even though I’m not sure I understand exactly what he means, I know it’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.