Astrid smoothed her brother’s hair down with her hand and let her fingers trace the side of his face. “Window seat,” she whispered. Then, to the others, “‘Window seat’ is a trigger phrase. It helps him find a calm place. It’s the window seat in my room.”

“Window seat,” Little Pete said unexpectedly.

“He talks,” Edilio said.

“He can,” Astrid said. “But he doesn’t much.”

“He talks. Great. What else does he do?” Quinn demanded pointedly.

“He seems able to do a lot of things. Mostly we’re good, the two of us. Mostly he doesn’t really notice me. But once, I was doing his therapy, working with this picture book we work on sometimes. I show him a picture and try to get him to say the word and, I don’t know, I guess I was in a bad mood that day. I guess I was too rough taking his hand and putting his finger on the picture like you’re supposed to do. He got mad. And then, I wasn’t there anymore. One second I was in his room, and then all of a sudden I was in my room.”

Gone, Chapter 13