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placed the bowl on the desk.
    â€œDid my mom make oatmeal?” Arrow asked.
    â€œYeah. Oh, my mother is dead,” I said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMy mother died. She killed herself in an insane asylum. Here. In Easton.”
    â€œI’m not following,” Arrow said.
    â€œMy mother never moved to Florida. She was here the whole time. She was committed.”
    Arrow thought for a moment. Then she said, “Easton Valley Rest and Recuperation Center for the Permanently Unwell?”
    â€œHow did you know that?”
    â€œI wanted to volunteer there, but my parents wouldn’t let me. It would have looked amazing on my college application. I couldn’t understand why they were so against it.”
    â€œThey didn’t want you to see her,” I said.
    â€œThat is a new level of shadiness.” She slid off the bed and crossed the room and hugged me tightly. I rested my head on her shoulder. Her skin smelled like lotion and soapand for some reason it made me want to cry. I hadn’t cried yet. My chest was knotting up. “I’m so sorry, Frannie,” she said, pulling away. She sat down on the edge of the bed.
    â€œIt’s okay. I’m okay.”
    â€œI can’t believe they lied to us.”
    â€œThis whole time, I could have just gone and seen her,” I said.
    â€œI don’t get it,” Arrow said. “I just don’t get it. I can’t believe she’s dead.”
    â€œYou know, she wrote me all these letters. I always wondered why she didn’t write to me, and she had. I just never got the mail.”
    Arrow’s eyes widened. “The black widow spider.”
    â€œThere aren’t even black widow spiders in Maryland.”
    â€œYou know, I could never picture your mother living in an over-fifty-five gated community in Florida,” Arrow said thoughtfully. “Everybody told me she had some kind of midlife crisis, but my mom has had plenty of those and she’s never moved south.”
    â€œI thought she just didn’t want me,” I said. My voice broke awkwardly. Arrow looked at me and waited.
    â€œI guess this is better, right? This is better?” she asked.
    â€œShe’s dead, Arrow. What’s better about being dead?”
    â€œOh, Frannie. Please don’t cry,” Arrow whispered. She scooted closer to me and grabbed my hands. She leaned so far over the side of the bed I thought she’d fall off. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you cry.”
    â€œI’ll cry if I want to,” I said.
    â€œLet’s get some more oatmeal. Let’s watch a movie. Let me paint your nails.”
    â€œI don’t want you to paint my nails. I want to cry.”
    â€œFrannie, please, please, please don’t cry. I love you so very much and we can do anything you want to do other than crying, okay? Anything you want to do. Do you want to go to the beach? Do you want to go paddleboarding? You keep saying you want to try paddleboarding!”
    Arrow was starting to tear up. I knew she didn’t want me to cry because she cried all the time, because even the word
cry
made her want to cry, because she had no control over her tear ducts and considered them traitors to her otherwise stoic demeanor.
    I tried to pull myself together. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. When I opened my eyes again, Arrow was staring at me. Her own eyes were wide and nervous.
    â€œThey all said the same thing. Her letters. I spent all night reading them,” I said.
    â€œWhat did they say?”
    â€œI mean, my mother is crazy. Was crazy. So, you know. How much can I really believe?”
    â€œWhat do you mean? Believe what?”
    â€œShe kept talking about Wallace Green,” I said.
    â€œThe movie star?”
    â€œShe said he’s my real father.”
    â€œThe movie star?” she repeated.
    â€œYes, the movie star.”
    â€œDo you believe that?”
    â€œOf course I