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Jack tells me the story behind my name a lot.
It's his favorite story to tell, and it's my favorite story to listen to. Y'know, they have a lot of romances in the library; sweet ones, bad ones, corny ones. But I've never heard one like Joseph and Madeline, not even close. Jack always says I'm the biggest example of their love for each other. Like how they both loved me. Madeline named me Jupiter so that Joseph could always find me. And my dad did find me, even if we never really met. He found me. He looked far and wide, Jack always says, looked in every direction. Alone, for most of it. He was always looking for you. And he found you.
Jack found me too. Jay found me too. My grandparents, and mom and dad, and Mrs. Stroud, and the nice librarian Mrs. Kilmer and her husband Mr. Kilmer who took care of me when I was young, and Mr. D'Ulney, and Miss Canton and her brother Mr. Canton, and Mrs. Halloway, and John, and Danny, and Ernie found me too.
Sometimes, it feels like I have so many worlds around me. I spend so much time with my mom and dad - my Hurd mom and dad - which means that Jack is always around somewhere. And even though mom and dad tell me that Jay and Jack didn't always get along, they're always together more than they are apart. Jay hangs around our house a lot, so much that he has clothes in Jack's dresser and knows all the cows by name. Every evening, he eats snacks with us in the kitchen. He likes sunflower kernels and raisins before runs, a PB&J after. And when I'm not with the Hurd's, I'm spending time with grandma and grandpa, a weekend here, a day off there, usually with Jay spending the night too. They visit us, most of the time, but still, most of my life is with the boys. They're always there for me.
Once, when they had a sleepover when I was six or so, Jack didn't tell me the story of Maddeline and Joseph when it came time for bed. He always tells me the story otherwise, but not that night. I was in the room with them, but they were supposed to wait for me to sleep before they did whatever it was they wanted to do at a sleepover. Mom didn't know I heard her tell the boys that, but I did. Every few minutes when Jack asked, I was still awake. Jay was clearly upset, and I felt bad. I almost told them that they should take my room, even when I was the one to beg to join them, but then Jay asked me if I would fall asleep if he read me a story, and I said yes. It would be the first time I heard a story from him, and I remember squeezing my eyes really hard and thinking, I have to remember this. He didn't start telling the story for a while, and I remember Jack telling him the truth; that he always told me the story Joseph told him about Maddeline, all in a whisper. He asked if Jay wanted to step out so he could tell it, but Jay had already told me, and I was very stupid as a child, so I threw a tantrum until Jay agreed to tell me a story.
When I went to school, I learned that it was a book that all the first grade teachers read to the students on the first day of school. But Ms. Carlson didn't tell it like Jay did. His voice was really quiet when he told me about the boy chasing his north star, and I had nearly fallen asleep when he told me that I was better than any star at all.
I wrote down that story last week when we did personal narratives in English, but that wasn't the one I turned in. Everyone in the school already knows everything about Joseph and Jay and Jack and Madeline and their lives, even the things I don't. I don't want to tell them any more than I have to.
Besides, Jay never stopped saying that just between us two. He memorized where Jupiter is in the sky, just like Jack and mom and dad and Mrs. Stroud and Mrs. Kilmer, and when he leaves our house after dark in the winter, he always wraps me in his coat in the doorway and points it out to me and says, there it is, the best navigation in the whole world, and I'll laugh and say, What about the north star? and he'll promise, not as good as Jupiter, and boop my nose, and I’ll stay out there with him until my nose turns red or he sends me back inside or Jack comes out because mom and dad sent him.
A few birthdays ago, as I turned seven, Jay brought me a sign for my room. I’d been seeing him and Jack a lot less since they got jobs with some of the farms around us, but they both surprised me off work that day for a surprise party. Jay's sign was handmade, a pastel purple and red written, better than the North Star, and I hung it up immediately, reaching up on my tippie toes to push in the thumbtack and then getting carried by Jay when I couldn't reach high enough.
Even today, it's still there. Even today, both Jack and Jay still follow me