I miss Brenna.
I miss Emerson.
I miss Josie.
I can’t call Brenna, and I’m too scared to call my friends, so I called Julia instead.
Her voice bubbled through the line when she answered. She sounded tired, but the bubbles were still there. The bubbles are always there with Julia. “Mom let me download this cool game on her phone with magical panda bears and unicorns and there’s this awesome quest to find a buried treasure. It’s hard, but I’m so good already. I’ll show you when I see you next. Can I visit—”
I cut her off. “I love you.”
“Huh?”
“I love you. I wanted to tell you that. And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry about what? What do you mean?”
For being jealous.
For hating you.
For making you worry.
I didn’t say any of those things, though. “I’ll be home soon,” I said. “I’m working hard.”
“I know you are. Oooh! Guess what I did at practice today for the first time?”
“Oooh, what?” I listened. I was excited. I was a good older sister.
I’ll be a good older sister.
Mom and Dad came to visit tonight. They brought a jigsaw puzzle, one of those five-hundred-piece ones with the smallest pieces in the world. The box had a picture of Cape Cod on it, with a wave breaking and a crab scuttling along the shore and a lighthouse shining from the end of a jetty.
I think a few pieces were missing, and then we kept losing more on the floor. We talked about the new guy at Dad’s work who snaps his gum super loudly and the exhibit Mom saw at some gallery across town: “Lots of modern stuff,” Mom said. “Bright colors. Reclaimed junk.” She peeked at me. “I saw some pictures of unicorns, like you used to draw. Some portraits, too.”
She said she liked them. She said the artist was talented.
I think that was Mom’s way of apologizing. Of being her own version of a lighthouse, shining a beacon for us to see by.