The worst part of letting new people into your life is the obligation to tell them about your past mistakes. It’s uncomfortable to feel vulnerable. Ciel would rather isolate himself than open up to someone else. His new therapist, Julie, would say the most uncomfortable parts of life are the most necessary. This is probably what Maria would say, too. He needs to stop focusing on Maria. The more time he spends dwelling on what’s over, the harder it will be to move on. That’s what they say, anyway. It’s summer. It’s been more than a year since the accident. Calypso’s room is still filled with her things.

It’s been lonely at home. Ciel has gone back to working regular hours, but work doesn’t bring the same satisfaction that it used to. In the morning of a day he has off, he spends some time at the antique auto museum. It’s probably much-needed for Ciel to get out of his house, but he doesn’t do it often. When the weather gets nicer, he’s more motivated to get out and do things. Julie says it would be helpful for him to meet new people. Healing doesn’t happen overnight. Maybe healing doesn’t really happen at all. Maybe, you just kind of learn to live with pain.

Before Juno died, she planted a field of violets in the yard. They’ve grown a lot since then. Juno used to say there was beauty in everything. She could see the beauty in everyone, but never in herself.

Ciel stands outside the museum, looking at a polished blue Argonne Automobile. It’s sunny, but cloudy. Over the past few weeks, he’s been speaking to a woman he met on an anonymous networking website, who’s only just recently revealed her name to him. Bellamy is an anxious woman who doesn’t talk about herself much, but asks Ciel questions about his life and his hobbies. She’s private, but comforting, and makes him feel heard. Someday, he’d like to meet her in person: and although Bellamy has stated her wish to do the same, she’s not ready. Some people are afraid of being known. She knows almost everything about him. He knows almost nothing except her name.

When he leaves the house, he rarely stays out late. Maria liked going to parties, and concerts, and Ciel always went along. Calypso was born during a rainstorm, when the roads on the way to the hospital were slippery and covered in mud. He was far too young to have a child. He was married for almost six years. He can make decent conversation with people he’s interested in speaking with. Most people just want to talk about themselves.

It’s summer. When the weather gets nice, the tattoo studios fill up. At the end of the month, Aspen turns sixteen. Ciel hasn’t seen her in a while, but he’s promised to take her to Smith Lake to go swimming. This will probably be good for both of them.

There’s always new things to learn about people. You could spend your whole life with someone, and still not know everything about them. There were things Maria didn’t know about him after six years. Ciel has been arrested only once, and this didn’t matter once he turned eighteen. In high school, like a lot of kids, he made friends with teens who weren’t great influences. This got him into more trouble than it should, and his mother always punished him for it. Anika never explained to her children why their actions were wrong, but scolded them all the same.

“Do you know if your father had any other kids?”

It’s not very late. When Ivo comes inside to cook himself a meal, Ciel stands beside him in the kitchen. He’s not an easy boy to have a conversation with, but he isn’t completely to blame for this. He never shares what he cooks, and he never speaks to Ciel unless he’s spoken to first.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

You have to try and be patient with him, said Maria once, after Ciel confided in her about his frustrations. He grew up in a house with a drug addict who neglected him, and then he watched the guy die. Maria knew more about Ciel’s family than she should have. Maria always saw the good in people.

He doesn’t know about Doutzen. Aspen won’t bring it up, and Ivo won’t want to hear it. He never looks directly at people. Ciel wonders how well Ivo sees him. “Aspen’s been talking to this girl named Doutzen.” He often wonders how Ivo cooks. He insists on hating technology, and uses things like talking watches and timers to do everyday tasks. “She’s adopted. Aspen says she did a bunch of DNA tests, and spoke to my mom’s sister, and apparently, Pim had a daughter none of us ever knew about.”

Ciel knows little about his uncle. Everything he’s learned comes from his mother: basic information like his name, and not much else. Ivo doesn’t talk about him. Ciel doesn’t ask. “Am I supposed to care?”

It’s not something Ciel can say out loud. Pim was a victim, too. Most people don’t choose to become addicts. “Your dad had another kid, Ivo. You have a half-sister.” It’s weird to think about.

Juno used to speak to Doutzen. This is what Ciel has been told, anyway. No one seems to know about her. Ivo’s eyes roll at random, so that he has to look at things from strange angles to see them at all. “I don’t know why you expect me to give a fuck.”

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It’s easy to imagine how you’d react to something. Ciel knows little about his extended family, and this isn’t for lack of trying. He’s asked his mother what her siblings were like, but was never told much. When he asks Ivo about Pim, he never gets an answer. Sometimes, Ciel feels bitterness toward his mother for relocating. He’ll never admit this. Half of his family lives across the world. Until teenagehood, he didn’t know his mother had any siblings at all.

“Did you ever want a sibling, growing up? Didn’t you ever get lonely?”

Ivo has a boyfriend. He never comes inside. Ciel has seen him through the window.

He scowls. “No.”

Ciel doesn’t believe this. Any kid would be lonely in a house like that. Ivo’s a liar, and he’s a good one. His phone is ringing. The ringer is always turned up. When he ignores the phone, it rings again. Nobody ever calls twice in a row unless it’s an emergency. Aspen never calls. By the time he answers, she’s on her third attempt. She’s sobbing. She probably had a fight with her parents again. She gives Ciel no chance to speak, but shrieks loudly, hurting his ear. “I think I killed him.”

She’s barely understandable. It feels like a lifetime ago that he was her age. “What are you talking about?” Sisters always have a way of interrupting. Something tells Ciel he’d never be Aspen’s first choice of contact.

It’s windy. Aspen sounds like she’s talking through a tunnel. “Ronnie!” She sniffles loudly, and then takes a few very deep and shaky breaths. “He was mad at me. He had a knife.”

He never met Ronnie. Aspen called him her boyfriend, and Ciel was a dumb teenager once, too. You can’t talk sense into a fifteen year old. “He pulled a knife on you?” It’s likely she hasn’t called home. It’s not hard to understand why. “Are you okay?”

Boys always ask stupid questions, his sisters complained, all the time, when he lived at home. Aspen is a noisy crier, and it’s a school day. This never mattered to her before. She snorts, and then coughs. “He’s dead, and it’s my fault! I didn’t mean to! I don’t want to go to jail!” Despite calming briefly, Aspen’s in hysterics again. It sounds kind of pathetic, actually. “I don’t know what to do.”

Bellamy takes a long time to respond to messages. She always has something unexpected to say. She texts him every day, more chatty some days than others. “Aspen, take a breath. Where are you? Do you need me to come pick you up?” Maybe he should care more about the lives of his sisters. He didn’t care enough about Juno, and now it’s too late. As the oldest, he was always supposed to know better, and to be a good influence to the others. If nobody teaches you what it means to be a good influence, how are you meant to know?

It’s quiet. Wind comes through the phone. Aspen exhales, ragged. “I’m at the Native Heritage Center.”

“In Anchorage?” Ciel checks the time, and then lights a cigarette. His car always smells like smoke. “Aspen, that’s a six hour drive. I have work in the morning.”

She’s wailing again. She’s just a kid. “Ciel, I’m scared.”

Ten or so years ago, Ciel’s sisters made a fort out of tree branches and boxes, and labeled it girls only. He didn’t much care about this, but irritating the girls was fun, so he’d come to knock things over during a “girls’ only meeting” in the trees, and both had gone tattling. Anika, who always took Aspen’s side, yelled at Ciel for pestering his sisters, and made him reassemble the entire fort.

He promised to text Bellamy later. There’s no telling if he’ll actually do this.

The last time he saw Aspen, they were picking up Doutzen from the airport. She’s a lot like Aspen, from what he’s seen: both girls are persistent, annoying, and hate hearing the word no. He doesn’t speak Dutch, despite his mother insisting he learn all through childhood. As far as he knows, none of Anika’s children really care about what she wants. When Ciel arrives in Anchorage, it’s almost midnight, and it still hasn’t gotten dark. Aspen hasn’t left the Heritage Center, even though it closed hours ago. He wonders what she’s doing so far from home. Tomorrow, he’ll likely show up to work after no sleep at all.

She got a piercing. There’s no way their mother allowed this. She’s in bad shape: wearing wrinkled, bloody clothing, with black makeup streaks all down her face. She climbs into Ciel’s car without saying hello, and grabs onto him tightly with dirty hands. They’ve never hugged before. Aspen presses her face into him, crying loudly. He should have been nicer to her growing up.

“What happened?”

She looks like she’s been crying all day. Aspen isn’t emotional. Ciel doesn’t remember the last time he saw her cry. She sniffles, rubbing her runny nose into his shirt. Despite the circumstances, this is annoying. Aspen buckles. Her hands are shaking so badly, this takes a few tries. She’s more than ten years younger than him, and looks like a very small child in the passenger seat. “Ronnie took me to the city. He was mad because I wanted to break up. He had a knife in his jacket pocket.” Ciel shouldn’t make Aspen relive things. He’s threatened Ronnie once or twice, but in the end, all you can do is hope kids learn from their mistakes.

It’s quiet. Aspen plays with her fingers, and jumps at the slightest noise. It’s dark on the highways. Aspen, who Ciel assumed to be asleep, sounds very sad when she talks.

“Can I live with you?”

Ciel’s house is a mess. At least once a week, Ivo gets angry at him for this. “Why?”

He needs a coffee. It’s not something he often drinks. Aspen wipes her face with a dirty shirt sleeve. “Mom and Dad make me want to kill myself. I don’t have any friends.” Everyone says being a teenager is easy, and that there’s no reason for them to be so hostile. Ciel has no idea what happens in Aspen’s life. They rarely check in with one another, and don’t have personal conversations when they do speak.

He shrugs. “Maybe.” It’s raining. Aspen curls her legs underneath her in the seat, and heaves a deep sigh.