The summer my parents separated, Cousin Maya came to spend a week with me in Gambier at our grandparents’ place. In the mornings, we rode our bikes past the fields. In the afternoons, we beat the heat under the porch fan, listening to the cicadas’ rattle in the trees. In the evenings, we walked along the creek and came home with grass-stained knees and mosquito bites.

On Maya’s last evening, a thunderstorm passed without rain, and the sky cleared just before dusk. We sat on the porch steps when the first firefly appeared above the grass. Its light blinked once and vanished. The pasture beyond the barn flickered with hundreds of tiny lights, appearing and disappearing so quickly. Maya disappeared and returned with a mason jar.

For the next hour, we chased fireflies across the yard. Each one flashed briefly against our palms before joining the others behind glass. By the time we stopped, the jar glowed between us like a lantern. Crickets chirped from the weeds. The scent of cut hay drifted across the pasture. Somewhere in the distance, a train whistle threaded through the dark.

Maya loosened the lid. For a moment, the fireflies remained where they were, blinking softly against the glass. One lifted into the night. Another followed. Soon, the jar was empty.

We watched until we could no longer tell the lights above the field from the twinkling stars overhead, studded across the black blanket of sky. When I think of that summer, I don’t remember the fights between my parents or the loneliness I felt after Maya left. All I remember is sitting beside Maya as the fireflies rose from the jar—small, bright things that slipped into the dark before I realized they were gone forever.