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I don’t remember returning from school to find Mama gone that second spring. I don’t recall anything about that spring, in fact. The next thing I remember is my first flight in an airplane that June—the excitement of going to see Mama in Colorado coupled with the agony of getting airsick and throwing up in the pocket of the man sitting next to me.

Mama’s VW Beetle moved under the constant sun like a green ladybug. Across the plains of yellowing grass we flew, the abundance of open space sliding away behind us as we drove from Colorado to Maine. I carried my Colorado memories close to my heart, like the coins in the magnifying box from the piñata, treasures I could examine through the larger-than-life lens of memory. There were the crisp beauty of the mountains and hugeness of the Colorado sky, the dry warmth of the sun that erased shadows at high noon, the friends I’d made, the adventures inner tubing down Boulder Creek, hiking in the Flatirons, going to my first movies, Jesus Christ Superstar and Star Wars. My happiness made Mama’s struggles all the more evident, and so she had decided it was time to go home.

Mama drove into the rising sun as Clara and I hung our heads out the open windows. The wind tightened the skin on our faces, ripping our hair and making it difficult to open and close our eyelids. We spilled our food and fought like baby groundhogs, rolling on top of each other in the back seat, the wind muting our screams. Bounded only by the walls of the car, we climbed back and forth from the front seat to the back, catching the legs of our shorts on the round ball of the stick shift.

“Get in your seat,” Mama shouted whenever her attention returned to the present.

“Mama,” Clara begged. “Mama, lap.” Mama tried it one time, her arms holding the steering wheel around Clara’s shoulders, but Clara squirmed so much, Mama didn’t let her after that. Still, Clara kept asking.

“Maaaamaa, laaaaaap,” Clara said for the hundredth time. I pinched her arm. She screamed. I pinched again. She screamed louder. “Stop it,” Mama said. “Stop it, stop it, stop it.” Her voice was wavery and loosy-goosy, as we called it. She said, “Stop it, or I’ll lose my grip.”

Don’t lose your grip, Mama, I whispered out the window. Hold on, hold on, or we will crash.

When it got dark we camped in Mama’s tent, tossing and turning, arms and legs and heads all mixed up together. “Please let me sleep,” Mama said, “please just let me sleep.”

There was the end-of-summer glow in the air as we drove, the days too perfect to last forever—warm and lazy with a touch of cool air underneath, so it didn’t feel as humid as July. The car sickness began as we left the open stretches behind, the wide sky shrinking to fill the space of roads becoming hilly and curvy. When I threw up out the open window, the wind whipped it away as Mama kept driving. I breathed in the smell of late-cut hay and the cool dampness of pine and moss through the open windows, and knew we were getting close to home.

“We’re almost there,” Mama said. “Hang on a little longer.”

We crossed the Flying-di-Dying bridge, and Mama started to cry. Clara joined her, and they wailed as I watched Heidi in the front seat, flapping her arms out the windows. Flying-flying-di-dying. She was wearing her little brown Greek fisherman sweater on backward, and the nest of her hair caught the light. I knew better than to say anything to Mama, even though I thought she should move her backpack from the seat so Heidi could have more room. At the far side of the bridge Heidi waved at me and flew away.

“H-O-M-E,” I spelled out when we passed under the H.O.M.E. sign of the artist colony by Bucksport. Mama pulled the car to the side of the road to brush her hair and put on a clean dress. We ran the cricks out of our legs and jumped for joy.

“Come on,” Mama called to us. “Let’s go see Papa.”

“Yay!” we said as we tumbled into the car. “Pa-pa, Pa-pa, Pa-pa,” we chanted. “Gonna see Pa-pa.”

Mama’s smile had lost its dryness