Only Saints

« xi. »

"How many cousins," Drew asks, "do you have, exactly?"

"First or second?"

He shakes his head with a grin that brightens up the dreary evening. It was just starting to get dark when he rolled up on the gravel driveway and took a long, hard look at the two trailers my family splits. He'd waved hello to Aunt Etta, the first person out the door, before I managed to get out of her kitchen and pull him away towards the creek behind Old Mère's back yard.

"If you have to ask that question," he says, kicking a loose stone into the slow-moving water, "it's too many. Let's say first cousins."

I have to count on my fingers to make sure I'm getting it right. "Just five."

"Just five," Drew echoes me.

"Yeah. It's me—well, don't count me, obviously—but Florie, Jenna, Vin, Melody, and...I think her name is Erica? She's my aunt Cathy's kid," I explain. Aunt Cathy hasn't showed up yet; she's supposed to be here in time for the spellweaving, but there's no telling if she'll actually come. Aunt Angie has turned her nose up every time someone even mentions Aunt Cathy and her family.

"Okay. So let me get this straight. Florie is..."

I hook my thumbs into the pockets of my jeans and try to think of ways to put Florie into words. It seems impossible. "Florie is my Aunt Etta's kid. We grew up together. Jenna is Imogen—she has the white hair; you probably saw her. Vincenz is...you'll probably never see them. And Melody hangs out with Vin, mostly. They're the younger kids," I say, like they're much younger than me. Like I don't belong at the kids' table just the same as they do.

It's weird to think that there's only three years between me and Vin. I feel like I'm so much older than they are. I feel like I'm in such a different place in my life that it's nearly impossible to draw comparisons between us. I know it's not fair when I had every head-start offered to me by my father's position and by my graduation from Dresdenwood, but I can't help but feel a little out-of-place in a household where most of them haven't even decided on what college to go to yet.

"Jenna has the white hair. Okay." Drew shakes his head like he's only barely understood any of what I've said in the last couple minutes. "Florie is...the oldest?"

"Jenna is," I correct him. "By a few years. Then Florie and me. Vin and Erica are the same age, I think. And Melody's the youngest."

"How can you keep track?"

"We have a calendar on the fridge. I'll show it to you."

It's hard to remember that to people outside the family, this is nothing more than a meaningless list of names. To Drew, he hears them and doesn't draw any connections at all. They're words written on blank lines in his memory, to be stored next to important details about them when he finally meets them face to face.

To me, it's more like yanking open drawers in filing cabinets overfilled with paper. Everything spills out, and half the time when I think of one person, I end up thinking of something else, or someone else, at the same time.

I get stuck in my head too much. I need to work on that.

Drew scuffs his shoe over the grass and kicks loose a clod of soil that goes tumbling down to the edge of the creek. "And what if we say second cousins?"

"I'd have to ask," I admit. I don't know Old Mère's sisters and their families well enough. Certainly not as well as I know my own aunts and cousins. I know their names from glimpses of them on social media before I block them and log out so no one can track me down.

I don't have time for it, anyway. I shouldn't be online to begin with. I have to focus.

I have to focus.