Before she flies off, my big sister has been teaching me how to recognize the constellations, and now we’re on the last lesson. She opens her encyclopedia to a drawing of Orion. “Put this image in your basket, don't forget it.” She points to his bow and arrow. “The Hunter’s invisible,” she says, “but you can feel his arrow pointing in your direction.” I don’t want her to stretch her patience and ask her to tell me what she means, so I stare at the illustration and nod my head. She will soon be gone, and there's a rubber band tugging at my heart.

*

Suitcases speckle the floor of her bedroom, and I’ve stopped making a fuss because it doesn’t help. I already miss her, so I shamble over to her bed. “Can you teach me how to kill a hunter?” I want to ask. Later, when she suds my hair in the kitchen sink, she tells me not to let Dad force me to get it cut. “He’s mad off his prescription,” she says. Grips my hair in her knuckles as if to protect it. Hums a song from a record made by French nuns, and I sing along with her but ruin the sound. Her violet eyes remind me of slippery summer flowers.

*

Later, she tickles me until I am laughing so hard, I pee. She sits there staring at me on her bedroom floor. When I finally stop laughing, my eyes tingle and my stomach feels raw. She bundles me back up in her arms and squeezes me until my guts feel like they’re popping out. “I’ll eat you!” I scream. Her grip softens. Then she starts singing so loudly in French my eardrums hurt, or maybe it’s just how it feels to love her too much. There’s already an ocean between us. I’m dying because of her, but she’s looking at me as if she’s the one who’s going to get hurt. “It’s late,” she says. An airline ticket on her nightstand. “Take me,” I say. I jump up on her bed and beg her to hold me again. “You’re too old for this,” she says. “And you need to move on to something else.”