I finish my hot chocolate and go to the sink to rinse my cup.

  “I’ve deleted it from your computer,” he says. “Just in case you’re looking for it.”

  “That’s not fair, Vernon,” Marta says. “You can’t just delete something Jane’s worked hard on. An opera, no less! She must have worked a long time.”

  “Since September,” I say. I don’t mention that I have backup copies. So many backup copies.

  Marta says, “It’s going to be a gorgeous day outside. Milorad is going to feed the roses and I’m going to defrost freezers. What are you doing today, Jane?”

  “I have studying. I also told Henry I’d spend time in the hothouse with him this weekend. So, that,” I say. “For now, I need to go tidy my bedroom.”

  Vernon answers, “While you’re tidying, you may want to think about how bad it is for your health to keep secrets!” He leaves muttering something about the opera. I leave and don’t tidy my room. Instead, I go to the en suite and pull out the iPad. I aim for a few weeks before I found the home movies. I want to see if I looked different on the cusp of being naughty enough to eye Gemma’s iPad and fed up enough to steal it.

  Home Movie—09.02.2024

  Henry is on the patio bench, humming a tune the camera didn’t quite pick up, but you can see him humming. He’s reading a book about when to plant vegetables depending on the positions of the planets. He’s drinking something out of a purple travel mug with a lid. He takes a swig and lets out a long burp.

  This goes on for about twenty minutes before Vernon comes outside.

  He sits on the bench next to Henry and opens up a book. Henry stops reading and looks at him. Vernon acts as if Henry isn’t there. Henry gets up and moves to the other bench, then starts reading again.

  Five minutes pass.

  Vernon says, “Come on. How long can you be mad?”

  Henry takes a sharp breath and slowly releases it and continues reading.

  Vernon says, “It’s not that big a deal! Everyone does it!”

  “She’s sixteen! It’s one thing if she picks them herself. But for you to get—paid?” Henry argues. “It’s wrong. I don’t know anyone else who would do it. And don’t tell me that’s because I’m naïve. I am naïve, but selling your own daughter is still wrong.”

  “I’m not selling her!” Vernon answers.

  Henry won’t even look at him.

  “It’s not even renting, really. And I say no to all the older men. She gets a lot of interest from older men, you know.”

  Henry takes a slow deep breath.

  “I shouldn’t have told you,” Vernon says. “You’re clearly not mature enough.”

  Henry reaches for the travel mug and drinks. “She’s my sister,” he says. “Stop selling her.” He drinks again.

  As Vernon explains, I note that Henry begins to look pale. His lips lose color. As Vernon says, “I know where she is at all times, so it’s not like anyone can steal her from us, you know?” Henry gets up, walks two steps and faces the patio flower bed and then vomits between two stunning hydrangeas.

  Vernon doesn’t get up. He doesn’t even look. When Henry returns to the bench and takes a drink from the mug, swishes it around in his mouth and then spits it to his right, Vernon says, “Jesus, Henry. After last Tuesday, I reckoned you were done with that stuff.”

  Henry ignores him. “Stay on topic. Promise not to sell Jane anymore.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Promise!”

  Vernon hangs his head. “Promise.”

  “Good. Now go inside. I came out here to be on my own.”

  Vernon gets up and goes inside.

 

  Home Movie—08.27.2024 (The Tuesday Before)

 

  Henry is on his knees vomiting into a flower bed in the rose garden.

 

  Home Movie—08.20.24 (The Tuesday Before That)

 

  Henry is on his knees vomiting into a flower bed in the rose garden.

 

  Home Movie—08.13.24 (The Tuesday Before That)

 

  Henry is on his knees vomiting into a flower bed in the rose garden.

 

  I think about how bad it is for one’s health to keep secrets, just like Vernon told me to.

  Frogs II

  This is how it always is—one home movie leads to another—and I don’t have time for that today. I don’t even have time to consider the fact that Henry knew Vernon was making money from my suitors before I did. Or that he stuck up for me. I don’t have time to be concerned about all that vomiting and all that drinking.

  I make sure my opera is still in the cloud where I left it, I clear my history, and I hide the iPad.

  It’s nine, and I’m impatient to give Henry his frogs. When I exit my room, I stage a small coughing fit and aim it directly at his closed bedroom door. I admit I even stomp a little for effect.

  I half expect to find him in the kitchen with Marta, but instead I just find Marta staring at the outside of the frog box, now back on the kitchen counter.

  I stop and listen. A few chirps. “A positive sign that they aren’t dead,” I say.

  I ask Marta to help me study for my bio test, and while she’s grilling me, I say quietly, “I need to talk to Mother today.”

  “London,” she says. “Two more shows.”

  “Let her know I need to talk later.”

  She pulls out her phone and sends a text. “You can use my place.”

  Milorad comes in the kitchen door. He looks freshly showered. “He is not up yet?”

  “It’s Saturday. He’s thirteen,” Marta says.

  “Usually we would already be working.”

  We stand around the box of frogs, listening to them sing. They don’t sound like regular frogs.

  “I hope they live a long life in the hothouse,” I say.

  “I am sure of it,” Milorad says.

  “Is Brutus in his cage?” I ask.

  “I think so.”

  “Can I go visit?”

  “It is messy, but you are now warned.”

  I go out the back door and walk across the patio to the pool house. As I walk past the sitting room, I see Vernon staring out at me. Startling—to be honest—as if the opera has taken a turn for the dark.

  Once inside, I flop into my favorite chair, and I watch Brutus go from his wheel to climbing up the sides of the cage, to drinking water, to eating some of Milorad’s homemade food, to getting back on the wheel again.

  “You’re so fast! It’s almost like you’re nervous.”

  He runs even faster.

  “Milo told me that you’re around twenty years old, which we both know is impossible for a rat.”

  Runs even faster.

  “I’ve hidden a letter where Vernon hides Mother’s postcards. You really should have a look at it.”

  I get up and walk back to the kitchen door.

  When I walk in, I say, “I can’t stand waiting. I’m going to go take a shower.”

  I’m not even lying. I take a shower. Dry my hair on the loudest hair dryer setting. Stomp a few times to see if I can wake Henry.

  When I leave my room, I decide to peek in on him. It’s past ten, after all, and this is unlike him. I quietly open the door, knocking lightly, and I say his name softly and then once I can stick my head in, I do.

  There is no one in Henry’s bed. “Henry?” I ask. He doesn’t answer from his en suite.

  When I get downstairs, I race to the kitchen, where Marta is emptying the freezer into a plastic laundry basket.

  The box of frogs is still there.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Henry came down?” I ask.

  “He did? I didn’t see him,” she says.

  I go to the study, then the sitting room, and then outside.

  “Is he ready?” Milorad asks from the flower bed, where he’s feeding the roses.

  “I can’t find him,” I say, and keep walking toward the hothouse.

  The key goes minor in my opera. I approach the hothouse door. I feel Milorad behind me fast-stepping. I open the door, and at first, I’m amazed by how much like a rainforest it is. I take a step in and then—

  “Henry!” I yell. “Henry?”

  He’s curled on the floor of the hothouse, a watering can spilled next to him, so his pants are wet and he’s not moving.

  “Henry!”

  Milorad comes in, then, and when he sees me leaning over Henry, he pushes me out of the way and does all the things a medic would do. He touches Henry’s neck for a pulse, pulls his eyelids up and looks at his pupils, he touches his skin, places his ear to his heart.

  “He is alive.”

  I start to cry hysterical tears. I don’t even care what Vernon would say. Fuck Vernon.

  “Henry!” Milorad yells in Henry’s face. He slaps his cheek gently. “Henry!”

  He looks to me, crying without making much noise, and says, “Get me first aid kit in pool house and bottle of water.”

  I run to the pool house and get both things and come back. No one else knows Henry is on the floor of his hothouse, soaked, probably since last night.

  “We should call 911,” I say when I hand the items to Milorad.

  He opens the kit, retrieves something small, and waves it under Henry’s nose, then opens the water, takes a long gulp, and as Henry starts to wake up, he sprays it in his face.

  Henry makes an annoyed face. “Hey!”

  I am still crying, but I am now relieved.

  “Did you just spit on me?” Henry asks. He looks around, sees me crying, looks back at Milorad, who is drinking more water, now sitting in the puddle, his pants and shirt soaked. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “We thought you were dead,” I say.

  “I wish,” he says. “You have no idea how pissed I am to be here.”

  I stare at him, livid tears still falling. “How dare you?” I say, Victorian Jane full force. “Do you have any idea how scary that was?”

  He lies back down in the puddle and begins to sob softly. Milorad strokes his hair, and I realize that I am a dour, piece-of-shit sister.

  “Wait. Are you serious?” I ask.

  “Leave us,” Milorad says. “Go get Marta.”

  Henry’s Shocking Bender

  An hour later, Henry has been showered and the hothouse has been hosed down to clear it of vomit and urine.

  The frogs are still in the kitchen, singing.

  Milorad sits quietly next to the box of frogs, sipping coffee and a bottle of water intermittently.

  No one has seen Vernon since I saw him staring out the sitting room doors.

  Henry is still in his room post-shower.

  I arrive in the kitchen.

  “He needs a good breakfast,” Marta says. “And we need to talk to a doctor.”

  “Vernon will not allow that,” Milorad answers. “But you are right about the breakfast.”

  “You could probably use something to eat, too,” Marta says. She flips the home fries frying on the stovetop. She looks at me. “And, Jane. You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “She was first person to see him,” Milorad says. “She has shock, probably.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get that image out of my mind,” I say.

  Marta puts her spatula down and hugs me, and I put my arms around her and tears flow down my cheeks. She rubs my back and all I can think is I thought he was dead but I can’t say it out loud. But I did, reader. I thought he was dead. And part of my heart will never be the same.

  Vernon slams the front door and walks loudly through the house until he finds us in the kitchen and finds me crying on Marta’s shoulder. “What’s the drama now?” he asks, and starts pouring a cup of coffee.

  We ignore him.

  “A man can’t be in his own kitchen in his own house, I guess.”

  We keep ignoring him.

  “I mean if Jane’s crying everything stops. Am I right?”

  Marta keeps rubbing my back. I hear Milorad take a deep breath through his nose.

  “Tough crowd.”

  “Shut up,” Milorad says.

  “I’m sorry?” Vernon says, as in excuse­me­what­did­you­say?

  “Stop talking,” Milorad says. Marta and I stop hugging and turn to watch.

  “This is my house!”

  “Technically, it’s not your house,” I say. “Everyone knows this.”

  “You’re psycho,” he says.

  “Is this all you care about, Vernon?” Marta says. “You don’t care about why Jane’s crying, you don’t care about why Milorad told you to shut up. You couldn’t read the room?”

  Henry walks in then, looking fresh.

  “There’s my boy,” Vernon says.

  “Shut up,” Milorad says again.

  “I’m warning you,” Vernon says. Henry watches this go back and forth, then places himself behind Milorad’s right shoulder. Vernon gestures to Marta and Milorad as if that’s who he’s warning. “Whatever the drama is, it can’t be bigger than the good news I have.”

  Henry looks angry. I’m sure all of us do. Then, as if on cue, Brutus scampers across the counter over by the oven. He stops at the cooling rack where a loaf of Marta’s famous brown bread sits. He pulls off a little piece with his paws, sits back on his tail, and eats, watching us watch him.

  Marta moves fast and grabs the rat while he’s chewing, walks over to the door, opens it, and tosses Brutus toward the flower bed, where he lands and scurries back toward the pool house.

  “Don’t you want to hear the good news?” Vernon says.

  Milorad gets up.

  “You stupid man. You almost killed this boy with your games! You do not even know this boy! You just use him and tell him lies!” Milorad’s voice cracks on that last part.

  “Oh my,” Vernon says. “You’re all worked up over whatever Jane’s drama is. I’ll come back when you can pay proper attention.”

  When Vernon leaves, the kitchen door swings and Henry points to the box on the kitchen island. “Are those frogs?”

  Hothouse Release Party

  Punk Rock Jane and the Red-Eyed Tree Frogs. I can’t help but hear a song. The frogs are happy-singing and they sound more like a rhythm section than anything—not like native Pennsylvanian frogs.

  INT. HENRY’S HOTHOUSE—LATE MORNING

  JANE is in background of the hothouse, up in a tree with a güiro and a tambourine. The BAND is dressed like frogs (bright green foam costumes) and in foreground. HENRY, MILORAD, and MARTA are also present.

  Song: “Hothouse Release Party”

  Composer notes: This is an anthem for frogs freed from a box. It should feel like climbing a tree.

  JANE

  THIS NUMBER IS ABOUT SOME FROGS

  WHO GOT A NEW ENVIRONMENT.

  THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO PASS A TEST

  OR MEET A MAN’S REQUIREMENT.

  THE FROGS CAME VIA UPS

  IN A STURDY BOX WITH HOLES.

  THEY PACKED ‘EM UP LIKE MERCHANDISE

  AS IF THEY DON’T HAVE SOULS.

  ALL

  HOTHOUSE RELEASE PARTY!

  EVERYONE INVITED!

  HOTHOUSE RELEASE PARTY!

  WE’RE TOTALLY DELIGHTED!

  JANE

  WHEN WE OPENED UP THE BOX

  WE EXPECTED THEM TO BOUNCE—

  BUT OUT OF TWENTY, EIGHTEEN STAYED

  UNWILLING TO DENOUNCE.

  WE HELPED THEM ONTO BROAD GREEN LEAVES

  AND PLACED THEM ‘PON THE DIRT.

  AND AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOX

  WE FOUND JUST ONE INERT.

  ALL

  HOTHOUSE RELEASE PARTY!

  EVERYONE INVOLVED!

  HOTHOUSE RELEASE PARTY!

  EVEN TREE FROGS GET ABSOLVED!

  JANE

  NOT ALL CAPTIVE FROGS SURVIVE, YOU SEE

  NOT ALL OF THEM ARE STRONG

  BUT IF YOU CAN HELP THEM BREAK OUT FREE

  THEY’LL SING A PRETTY SONG.

  THIS NUMBER TURNED TO METAPHOR

  PROBABLY ABOUT YOUR MOTHER.

  APPRECIATE HER IF YOU CAN

  YOU WILL NEVER GET ANOTHER.

  ALL

  HOTHOUSE RELEASE PARTY!

  IT’S GONNA BE THE BOMB!

  HOTHOUSE RELEASE PARTY!

  GO FIND AND HUG YOUR MOM!

  JANE (speaking into mic)

  Obligatory public service announcement: Some moms are terrible moms. We know how lucky we are here at FREE MOTHER to have awesome moms.

  BLACKOUT

  We are sitting around in the hothouse, and none of us care how hot it is. “You really scared me, Henry,” I say.

  “I scared myself, believe me,” he says.

  “What the fuck did you think you were doing?” I ask.

  “Same as I do every day for like—two years? I drink, I get drunk, I get drunker, I sleep.”

  “You are thirteen years old,” Milorad says.

  Henry shrugs. “I’m a prodigy.”

  “We’re going to have to talk about the alcohol,” Marta says. Milorad is collecting bottles of liquor from around the hothouse and putting them in a box.

  “I’ve been with you every day since you were eight,” I say. I point toward the study and Vernon’s Pandemic Prison Academy.

  “You thought you were the only one,” he says.