“Sometimes I wish,” she starts, staring blankly out at the road in front of them, “I didn’t have to have everything figured out. I wish I could turn off the part of my brain that needs perfectly executed plans, you know?”

Raj laughs lightly, his mouth curling in his beard. “I thought the great Grace Porter loved her plans.” He bumps her shoulder. “Colonel had one set out for you, and you were determined to follow it.”

“It wasn’t just that,” Grace says, looking at him.

“You were gonna make sure your dad was proud of you,” he says. “A Porter always does their best.” His voice goes wry with Colonel’s echoed words.

“Yes. A Porter always does their best,” she repeats, staring down at her hands. “Maybe I don’t know what my best is anymore. Maybe my best is doing something completely reckless Colonel wouldn’t approve of.” Her fingers tighten around the umbrella. “Something absurd and ridiculous and all mine. What if that’s my best?”

They stop in front of her building, and Raj searches her face. “If it’s your best, then it’s the best,” he says, voice sincere. “You need to talk more?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I can handle it. I always do, don’t I?”

She looks up at the apartment. The lights are on. Everyone is home but her.

“Thank you,” she says, getting her keys out. “For listening or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” he teases. “If you change your mind and do wanna talk, call Meera instead. I need my beauty rest.”

“Will do.” She salutes from the door. “Night, big brother.”

“Night, little sister,” he says, and he disappears into the night, as Grace heads into her apartment.

The stars glimmer above her. They gleam under the gaze of people like Grace, searching for meaning in their formations. They are doing their best for all the people that stare up at the dark and do not know that they, too, shine brilliantly.

The door shuts behind her. The universe says, Places, everyone, and its inhabitants gather. They are doing their best.

Three

Grace didn’t grow up in Portland.

She grew up in Southbury, Florida, on family land turned into orange groves. There were always people out in the early morning with sticky citrus fingers, dropping fruits into basket after basket until the picked oranges were trucked away.

Grace remembers playing hide-and-seek in the groves. Giggling behind big, wide trees as Mom called her name. She remembers the smell, oh, the smell of oranges in the evening. When the sky turned pink, then purple, then midnight blue.

Mom called out for her, and Grace hid for hours in those grove trees.

She was thirteen when she and Colonel jumped in the rumbling pickup truck and left. Mom stood on the veranda with a trembling smile on her face.

“You be good for your father,” she said, as Grace held back angry tears. “Listen to what he says.” She pulled lightly on one of Grace’s curls, and it sprang back into place. “Call me as soon as you land.”

Grace remembers worrying about the trees. Would they still grow big and strong without her there to watch them? Would they still grow plump fruit? Would it still taste as sweet?

She asked Colonel about that once, about the trees.

“Your mother will watch over the trees,” he said carefully, as gentle as he knew how to be. “They’ll be fine.” He said, “They’ll still grow as long as she’s there.”

Grace looked at him. “And who will watch over her?” she asked, and Colonel went silent.

Eventually, she stopped asking Colonel about the trees. She listened when Mom talked about the grove on the phone. She waited at the mailbox for letters with pictures of the harvest. Those didn’t come as often. Mom was busy, after all, taking care of all the oranges and trees and the earth beneath her feet. Then, she was busy during the off-season, traveling around the world in search of meaning and spirituality and holistic retreats that made Colonel scoff when the postcards came.

Soon enough Grace was busy, too.

So, she didn’t grow up in Portland. But Colonel’s house, with its winding driveway and pebbled walk and Victorian porch, eventually made itself home.

Sharone answers the door with fresh box braids, her dark brown skin gleaming in the setting sun. She smells like shea butter and vanilla when she leans in for a hug.

“Porter,” she says, smile in her voice, and Grace relaxes into her embrace. From her mouth, her name has a different harmony. Porter doesn’t sound like a rebuke, a resignation, a demand, like it does from Colonel. From her stepmom, it just sounds like a name of a person you love. “We miss you. I wish you’d spend some time here now. You graduated in January, and we still barely see you. I know Colonel would enjoy it.”

Grace rolls her eyes, following Sharone into the house. “Right,” she says. “He enjoyed my graduation, too. Must have been ecstatic when they called me Dr. Porter, and he stormed out.”

Sharone sighs. There’s a process to dealing with Colonel: excuses, rationalization, defeat, attempting to change the behavior, sighing and finally acceptance. Grace is still trying to reach acceptance. She thinks she might always be trying to reach acceptance when it comes to her father.

“Is he home yet?” she asks. He was the one who invited her for dinner. A formal email, signed off with all his military honors and titles, as if Grace needed reminding.