Dinner that night is a Vivian Irvine specialty: fish tacos. As soon as Joey and Neo step into the kitchen, shirtfronts dark with sweat from pedaling up the hill so fast, she barks at them to wash up and help her. Neo dices tomatoes for pico de gallo while Joey slathers various seasonings on gleaming white pieces of cod. All the while, Uncle Duke is in the living room, bouncing a happily gurgling baby Olivia on his knee.

"One of these days, when she's old enough, I'm going to tell her she was an accident," Joey told him recently, as Joey fed her orange spoonfuls of fowl-smelling baby food. "I mean, really. I remember very distinctly. My mom told me when I was ten years old, 'One baby is all your father and I need.'"

To which Neo said, wiping Olivia's adorably chubby face with a napkin: "Joey, you absolute monster."

When the fish is cooked and the tomatoes are diced and everything else is ready, they eat. Neo has only eaten three dinners with these people before—barring the few times Uncle Duke visited them in New York, or a few, oddly-placed family reunions that were mere blurs in Neo's memory at this point—and yet he could already predict exactly how each meal would go.

Aunt Vivian talks first, usually about whatever depressing story she heard on the news that day or something the old woman living next door said. (This time, it's a particularly long tale about a French immigrant living towards Haleiwa that is rumored to be "weird and psychic.") Next, Joey recounts the day's events in stunning detail, whether the urban legend in question was interesting or not (and, like the Pale Bridge, they are usually not). Finally it's Uncle Duke's turn. He just flashes an easy smile and says, "Work is good." He's an engineer, but that's about all Neo knows about his uncle's job. Some days he leaves the house wearing a suit while others he's in construction gear—it's hard to gauge.

By that time, Olivia is starting to fall asleep, and that's when Vivian points a fork at Neo and asks, "So how are you?"

Normally he has nothing to say to that, or nothing that seems worth saying, anyway. Tonight is different. "That house," he says, after a breath of hesitation. "The one on the cliff? Is it true that no one's living in it?"

Aunt Vivian finishes a bite of her taco, then reaches back to scoop up a handful of peas from Olivia's tray and roll them in Olivia's direction. "As far as I know," she says, turning back around, "no one's owned that place since '83."

Neo raises an eyebrow at Joey.

"So I was slightly off," Joey admits, lifting his hands in surrender.

"Twenty years is not slightly off, Joey."

"Hey. I'm not good at math. You know that."

Uncle Duke leans back in his chair, interlacing his fingers over his ample stomach. He coaches football at the high school Joey went to, and even still he has that gleam of faded glory: a smile still prepped for the cameras, once muscular arms now cushioned with fat, a pronounced lift to his posture that speaks of better, older days.

"I'm sure the county's not going to leave it for much longer," he says with an impassive shrug. "It belonged to some, what—real estate brokers, or something? Wealthy sorta people, you know. You're a New Yorker, so like...the penthouse type of people, maybe? Anyway there was some sort of faulty gas pipe in the kitchen and, as it happens, whole house filled with the stuff. The guy and his wife both died in their sleep."

Neo draws in a breath. "That...kinda sucks."

Another shrug. "These things happen, kid. Besides, it's not like it matters. Like I said, they're not going to let it just sit there forever."

"Neo, why are you asking about this?" asks Aunt Vivian, raising a dark eyebrow. She's Neo's father's sister, and yet besides the obvious warm brown skin and the dark curls—both features he himself has—sometimes Neo has trouble even seeing the resemblance. He's not sure what it is, maybe the sharp line of her jaw, or her small nose, but something about her is significantly different: a painting done with the same brush and same colors but with an entirely different theme.

"Is Joey trying to do something stupid again?" she goes on, shooting a glare across the table at her son. "Joseph, my goodness, if you drag poor Neo along on any more of your crazy little adventures—"

"Ah, no, no, that's not it," Neo starts, and Joey lets out a tiny sigh of relief. "I just saw it on the way home and....dunno. Got curious."

Joey laughs, sudden and ebullient. "It's an old house, Neo. Look around a bit more; you'll probably find about seventy of those in this place."

After dinner, Neo waits until Joey's in the driveway practicing his free throws. Once he's gone, the persistent thud and then twang of the ball hitting the backboard the only marker of his proximity, Neo pulls out what he needs.

They had to pay extra to get his telescope here, but Neo insisted to his father that he wasn't leaving New York without it. As he drags the case out from underneath his twin bed, carefully extricating the pieces from their box, a thrum of excitement rises in his chest. The stars back home are hard to see, most nights—after all, it's the city that never sleeps, and the stars hide behind the washed, commercial light of human life.

Here, however, there is nowhere for them to hide.

He shoves the window open; a rush of warm night air hits him in the face, smelling of the sea. The roof is sloped, far from safe, but Neo doesn't care. He slides onto it with ease, not daring to look down, and drags his telescope after him.

For as long as he can remember, he's loved the sky. In grade school, he spent most of his recesses on his back, cloud-watching. He marked the date of the school field trip to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum on the calendar in his room and x'd off the days with undying anticipation. And last year, just before she got sick, his mother bought him this telescope. He can remember the moment she set the box down in front of him, his father standing a bit off to the side, trying not to grin. How much joy swelled within him at that moment—God, if only he could feel like that again.

Neo leans forward, peering into the telescope, and nearly loses his breath. He has seen stars before—many, many times before—but never this many at once. Every time he blinks, it's as if more appear: twinkling white orbs, dusted across the black like a sudden spray of clean snow. When he focuses the lens, they change colors. Some burning red, some cool blue, some fixedly white-hot. He knows what they're made of: hot, gravity-compressed spheres of gas and dust. But he likes to think there's a lot more magic to them than that.

A familiar ringtone brings him out of his stupor. Sighing, Neo nabs his phone from his pocket. He glances at the screen, hesitates, then answers. "Hello?"

His father's voice is clear and decisive in Neo's ear: "Hey, kiddo. You settling in okay? You haven't called me since you got there."

It takes him a second to realize this is, in fact, true. The thought hadn't crossed his mind. "Oh," he says with a frown. "Sorry. Joey's sorta been dragging me all over the place, so I haven't had a lot of time to myself."

His dad lets out a light, goodhearted chuckle; Neo's surprised to feel a painful pang of homesickness. "That kid. Is that going to let up anytime soon?"

"You know Joey," says Neo, as another twang sounds in the driveway, followed by a half-muttered curse. "So I think we both know the answer to that one."

Another laugh. "But you're liking it so far?"

"Yeah," Neo says, and then pauses. It's not a lie, he doesn't think, but it's certainly not the whole truth. Because as much as he tries to stifle it, it always comes back: that throbbing ache in his chest, a missing puzzle piece of sorts, a worry-shaped space he can't seem to fill. "But I...Dad?"

Something in his father's voice has changed; whatever that odd space is within Neo, his father must have heard it. "Yeah?"

"I kinda wish I wasn't here," Neo admits, running his finger absently along the edge of a black shingle. "In Hawaii, I mean. Because, you know, that would mean Mom is okay. And that you guys were okay, like, with each other—"

"Neo, we've talked about this," his dad interjects, ignoring Neo's audible sigh. "You know it's better for you to be there right now. Just while...we sort everything out, you know? Once I know how everything's going to play out, you'll come home and it'll all be fine."

Neo doesn't want to say it. He tries to fight saying it, but he can't: "You mean once you and Mom divorce? It'll all be fine then? That's what you mean?"

Silence.

There's a low swish of the basketball net, and a celebratory yelp. The noise raises goosebumps on Neo's skin, like laughter in a funeral hall.

Finally, his father speaks. "It's safer for both of us that way, Neo. You know that. After the fire—"

"We don't know that was her fault. We don't."

"Neo. I don't think you understand me."

"You're right," he snaps. "I don't. Because I'm not giving up on her, not like you are. So no, I don't understand at all."

"Watch your tone with me, young man."

Neo can see the sternness of his father's expression, the little folds of skin in his forehead that appear whenever he's upset. Neo drops his voice. Though he only half-means it, he says, "I'm sorry."

The sudden sharpness to his father's voice drains, just as quickly as it was there. "I love your mother, Neo. I put that ring on her finger, after all. I just—I just have to do what's best for us right now."

A slice of cold startles Neo, settling in the pit of his stomach. His heartbeat starts to speed as he searches his pockets, the roof—nothing. He clambers back through the window, rummages through the dresser, the desk, his backpack. Nothing. Under the bed, nothing. Bathroom sink, nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

"Neo? Neo!"

Neo stops. He forgot the phone was still on. He waits until his breath is calm to say: "I'm sorry, Dad. Can I—can I call you some other time? I'll tell Aunt Viv you said hi."

"Neo—"

He shoots a glance at the bedside clock: 9:35. Not late, but late enough. "I'm actually really tired. Goodnight!"

He ends the phone call, retrieves his telescope, stows it underneath his bed again.

The bed squeaks in protest as he falls back upon it. Where is it, where is it, where is it?

He sits up with a start, because he knows exactly where it is, doesn't he? Neo recalls the dink he heard, like a stone tossed to the ground, how his pockets felt lighter as he and Joey left that abandoned house earlier.

He wasn't planning to return—the gas leak story had spooked him—but now, he realizes, he has no choice.

He can't lose that stupid ring. It's the only chance he has left.