GOTTFRIED, enters through deck sliding door. You guys have great kids! What a bunch of smarties! (Shakes his head.) But Marla worked a long time to hide those eggs and they’re sharing the candy!

  Marla calls for someone to fill water glasses, and Missy goes to the kitchen to get started. Harry sits down and closes his eyes as if he were meditating. Jean and Amber open the door to the deck to tell the kids to come in. The last thing Amber hears of their conversation is her son, David, saying, “We’ll take my car.”

  THE FREAK LOVES PINEAPPLE STUFFING AND AWKWARD CONVERSATION!

  The Freak is still in the trees. The Freak is still in the downstairs bathroom. The Freak is wherever she wants to be whenever she wants to be there. That’s the beauty of being The Freak.

  All this talk of her father is sad. Poor Matt. Wish he’d visit more often. Bullshit. This family is complete bullshit. Fact: Matt was a shitty father and a shitty husband and probably a shitty son and a shitty brother. Fact: If Marla and Gottfried would have loaned Matt a few thousand measly bucks, The Freak would not be wrapped in a dirt tortilla. There would be no dirt burrito. None of this would have happened.

  The Freak is angry about this, but she’s also not angry about this. It’s not Marla and Gottfried’s fault that she met that boy at the mall. It’s not their fault that his brother was waiting in his car. It’s not their fault that no one was listening when she yelled. It’s not their fault that the people who did hear dismissed it as teenage drama.

  But would they pay a few thousand bucks to have Matt there at Easter dinner? Would they pay a few thousand bucks to bring her back from the dirt? They say they would. Odds are, they’d call it a loan and collect interest. Odds are, they’d still treat her mom like shit even though it’s not her fault that her dad is a giant asshole. Fact is, they can be bummed out about Matt all they want, but he’s the biggest reason she’s a dirt burrito. If he’d have grown up and known how to treat his wife and kid, then her mom would have never had to take the job in Pennsylvania, and The Freak would still be safe in her bed in California.

  In case that’s confusing, The Freak wants you to know the basic blame order: Blame the murderous brother-boys first, then her dad, then the half-wit high school bitches next, then her grandparents. And probably Aunt Jean. Because for all her talking about missing The Freak’s dad, she’s loaded and didn’t loan him the few thousand measly bucks, either.

  Greed trickles down in many forms. It made Harry a humanitarian who forgets the human he’s personally responsible for from time to time. It made Amber and Missy happy with what they have, especially if their kids don’t have any more. It made Jean a judgmental twat. But it just made The Freak disappear. No more pineapple stuffing for her.

  CanIHelpYou?’s Easter Dinner

  The one nice thing about having the whole family—what’s left of it—at Easter dinner is that everyone here hates my lying, big-mouthed mother as much as I do. You don’t think that’s funny. You think I should grow up and move on. Right now her stupid bell is in a box under my bed. Maybe once I smash it with a hammer I’ll feel better. Until then, keep your judgments to yourself.

  Weird that the shoveler ended up my cousin. Weirder still that he’s been working at my grandparents’ house since January and none of them knew they were related.

  My mother sticks her foot in her mouth the minute this is brought to light. “You let a teenager paint your house?”

  Gottfried says, “He did better than any painter I had in.”

  “Mom, don’t be rude,” I say.

  “I didn’t think I was being rude.” And she doesn’t think she’s a racist, either. None of us do. Ian is haunting my Easter dinner. He’s making me see everything clearly. If I’m not careful, I’m going to feel fifty soon.

  “So you three knew each other since January and didn’t know David was your grandkid?” Uncle Harry says.

  Marla can’t stand the topic, so she eats faster. Not as fast as Loretta, though, who eats as if someone is about to take her food away. She’s weird—always bowing and talking to an audience who’s not there—but I like her.

  “So, what kind of job are you working now?” Mom asks Aunt Amber.

  “I do the books at a car lot.”

  “Which place?”

  She says the name and no one has heard of it. Mom and Mom-Mom make a grunting noise as if they don’t believe Aunt Amber has the job. And she notices.

  “What? I’m thirty-four years old. Why would I lie?”

  My mom says, “Don’t be paranoid.”

  “I’m not paranoid.”

  Silence. More fast eating. More Ian haunting me. Because my grandmother is a racist, too. It’s like I can see it. I can look at a person and see it. I’m afraid to look at everyone else at the table. I stare at my pineapple stuffing.

  “Where are you working these days, Jean?” Aunt Amber asks.

  “I don’t have to work,” my mom says in that way she says things. I want to stab her in the face with my fork.

  Uncle Harry says, “Must be nice.”

  “I’m raising my daughter.” Malcolm kicks me under the table. He must see me gripping my fork harder.

  “And I’m raising my son,” Harry replies.

  The shoveler asks for more potatoes. Then he says, “Can I ask a question?”

  Everyone nods.

  “So, how come we sold the farm? Like—was it just a bad business or too hard or something?”

  When the shoveler asks this, everyone at the table looks like they might stab one another with forks.

  “Your grandfather is no farmer,” Marla finally answers.

  Gottfried finally swallows the lump of food he’s been chewing. “I hated it. My brother and sister hated it. We didn’t get along, either.”

  Marla chimes in. “And it’s not like any of your parents got along enough to run a business. They all would have wanted to be in charge.”

  “Maybe that’s because you raised us to be competitive,” Uncle Harry says.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” my mom says.

  “I mean, you could have at least taught these kids how to do an Easter egg hunt,” Gottfried says.

  The shoveler looks at the rest of us kids and raises his eyebrows. We have to eat. We have a plan. A mission. We need to hurry.

  As I finish my plate of food, I try to imagine Ian at this Easter dinner. He’d be so funny and so great and he’d ignore the weird shit everyone is saying and he’d treat it like some kind of anthropology project. That’s how he has to get through life here. Because every single person he meets is racist in some way and they have no fucking idea they are.

  Loretta asks to be excused, and Marla says, “Are you feeling all right, dear?”

  “Fine,” Loretta says. “I just have an after-dinner act I have to rehearse one more time before I show it to you.”

  Gottfried looks uncomfortable and like he wants to say something, but he digs into his second helping of potato filling instead.

  I stop thinking about Ian because I’m glad he isn’t here and having to live through an anthropology project. I try to do that for myself. I put on my anthropologist’s hat and look at my family.

  It’s a family-that-isn’t-a-family. My mother hates all of them. Says so as often as she can. Uncle Harry is going to die and I barely know him. I essentially just met my two aunts and they seem cool—and maybe not nightmare racists like my mother, so that’s good. But there’s more than one missing part here. More than one missing cousin, or one missing uncle who lives on the West Coast. The hole in this family-not-a-family is big. It’s bigger than a six-hundred-acre potato farm. It’s bigger than this county that we all live in. I can’t figure it out.

  It’s like some wall went up in 1970 when my grandparents got married.

  It’s like some wall went up when they had these children who are now grown.

  It’s as if those children are all trying to do better with us—their children—but they don’t know how. You probably think I’m too stoned for Easter dinner. This Easter dinner, especially. But something tells me it’s not the weed. You know damn well something’s wrong with the roots of our family and I have a feeling we’ll never know what it is.

  Loretta, Act Three: Close the Show with a Bang

  Loretta puts on her stage makeup in the upstairs bathroom. She can hear the audience chattering and laughing and she’s as ready as she’s ever been. Gerald and Dolly are in the lunch box arguing again about whose act is better and she’s had it with arguments. She knows she can’t go on like this forever. With her dad gone now, and her living in this pretty room, the troupe just doesn’t fit into her life anymore.

  She puts her hair up into a tight bun and fits her sequined hair clips into it. Does one final dusting of powder, grabs her balloons, and descends the stairs. The audience goes quiet.

  Loretta feels it’s wrong to introduce herself because she can’t play two roles at the same time. She’s Ringmistress, yes, but she’s the talent now, too. So she starts blowing up balloons, and when she has four, she shapes them into two penis-and-testicle animals and gives them to David and Malcolm.

  They laugh and start dueling with them, which makes the audience laugh, except for Aunt Jean, who doesn’t laugh at anything. So Loretta blows up four balloons and ties them into perfect labia and leaves enough extra for the perfect clitoris. She hands it to Jean and points to the spot. She says, “This will come in very handy.”

  She bows. Then she makes one genitalia balloon for everyone at the table and then bows again and her smile is bigger than it ever was in the wagon.

  “It’s always a special day when my mom is in the audience,” she says. “Everyone, a round of applause for my mom!”

  The crowd goes wild, and Loretta feels as if she’s distracted them enough. It was her part of the plan. They need dinner to move quickly, and nothing moves adults more quickly than teenagers acknowledging the existence of sex.

  Marla Doesn’t Really Like Dessert

  Jean brought a Pavlova for dessert, and Marla is exasperated by it.

  “What is it, even?”

  Gottfried says, “Looks good to me.”

  “I think it’s some sort of meringue. With fruit?” Marla says. “If you think kiwi is a fruit.”

  Gottfried walks to the garage and closes the door behind him. He takes a deep breath and stares at the two patches of painting on the walls. Thinks about the painter kid. How about that? The painter kid is my grandson. Part of him wishes he’d have known before he paid him all that money. The other part thinks of the robins again.

  Such a waste. All he had to do was pay better attention. Slow down sooner. Anything to avoid this lifetime of being haunted by those damn birds.

  “I’m not sure what to call you now,” someone says. It’s the painter kid—who’s sitting over by the sink.

  “You always called me Gottfried before. Still works.”

  “I guess I know more about my family now,” he says.

  “I guess you do. Sorry she kept it from you for so long,” Gottfried says. “Our family has its problems, I guess.”

  “You kicked her out when she was pregnant,” the kid says.

  Gottfried thinks the kid’s going to say more, but he doesn’t. And Gottfried crashes into the robins a hundred times in his mind, watching them die over and over again. He says, “I think it’s time for dessert!”

  * * *

  When they walk inside, everyone is sitting around digesting and marveling at Loretta’s balloon genitalia. Gottfried announces dessert, and all the adults groan and say it’s too soon.

  Katie says, “Come on. Let’s eat!”

  Malcolm says, “I can’t wait to try it.”

  Loretta says, “It looks so good!”

  Marla says, “You know, I never really liked dessert. So, why not get it over with.”

  She watches Amber, her youngest child, move only once the others have moved. She watches her hands and the way she walks. She sees herself as a young woman. She regrets her whole life in an instant. That’s dessert.

  THE FREAK FEELS THE WIND IN HER HAIR!

  The Freak has been waiting for this day for nearly two years.

  The Freak is in your living room.

  The Freak is in your TV show.

  The Freak is frying you her great-grandmother’s potato croquettes.

  But really, The Freak is sitting cross-legged on top of a 2004 Nissan Sentra that’s driving to New Jersey.

  Inside the car are The Freak’s four cousins. They’re listening to loud music and are sharing the playlist. Everyone gets a turn. Her shoveler and Loretta, a master at balloon animals and the flea circus, are in the front seat. Malcolm and the girl from Arby’s are in the back seat. They are on a mission. A mission that no one but them knows they’re on.

  The Freak feels nervous. This is rare. Impossible. Nervousness is reserved for the living, and yet she feels it all the same. Tonight will be a very important night for a lot of people. It will be the Easter they never forget.

  The shoveler speaks. “So, you know I don’t know who my dad is, right?”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Loretta says.

  Malcolm and Katie stay quiet in the back seat.

  “Do any of you guys know who it was? Is there some family secret or something? Because my mom won’t tell me.”

  “Isn’t it on your birth certificate?” Katie asks.

  “Just says unknown.”

  Malcolm says, “Huh. Why’s it such a big deal to you?”

  “Because he’s my dad,” the shoveler says. “You all know who your dads are.”

  “And outside of Malcolm, we all have shitty dads,” Katie says.

  “My dad can totally be shitty,” Malcolm says.

  “Maybe she’ll tell you when you’re, like, eighteen or something,” the girl from Arby’s says. “Moms do weird shit like that.”

  * * *

  The Freak hears this conversation. She’s in the stereo speaker. She’s in the headrest. She’s in the dashboard. She climbs into the back seat.

  “A man who prides himself on his ancestry is like the potato plant, the best part of which is underground,” she says. She leaves a bright green Easter egg on Malcolm’s lap. It’s a real egg. Malcolm holds it up, and the shoveler sees it in the rearview mirror.

  “Holy shit,” the shoveler says. “That’s my egg from this morning. From the sinkhole.”

  No one in the car knows what he’s talking about, but they nod anyway. Loretta is staring. The Freak feels weird about it. She wishes she could have saved Loretta from You-know-who, but sometimes there’s nothing she can do. One time she visited Marla to tell Marla where she was. Marla only thought she might be going crazier. The Freak visited her parents a lot at first, but they never paid attention—which was surprising considering her mother is an artist and has paid numerous swindlers to read the lines on her palms.

  The Freak knows the living have differing views about the dead—about what happens after you die. The Freak can’t talk details. She just wishes the living paid more attention.

  To make this point, before anyone in the car can ask her questions, she flickers.

  The Shoveler: New Jersey

  I feel like I’m in that dream with the ocean and the huge waves. Calm, dipping my body under the water while the storm moves overtop of me. The storm is Mr. ________son. The waves are me.

  The Freak was just in the back seat. She told me that the best part of me is underground. She may be right. I’m not sure how much I know the me that’s aboveground. I just met my family at the age of sixteen. Before then, I didn’t know they even existed.

  * * *

  “Okay,” I say, and turn the stereo down. “Who here wants to buy a potato farm and just fulfill our destiny after we graduate high school?”

  “Shut up,” Malcolm says. “Turn the music back on!”

  Loretta leans over and turns the stereo up again. “I’d do that,” she says. “I love learning new things.”

  “But I’m serious,” I say.

  “Me too,” she says.

  Can I see myself starting a potato farm with Loretta? Yes. I can. It’s very aboveground. Lots of variables, but none I can’t handle.

  She says, “So, this girl—this freak person. She was just here, but really she’s dead, right?”

  “Something like that,” I answer.

  When Loretta puts it that way, I’m sadder than I was before. She’s dead, right? I thought she was the meaning of life. But she’s dead. There’s something in that, but I’m not sure what.

  “So, the plan is to call the police once we get there?” Malcolm asks.

  “I don’t know,” Katie says. “Loretta has a point. And I don’t like cops, as a rule.”

  I say, “Let’s see what we find when we get there. This could all be horseshit.”

  “Doesn’t feel like horseshit,” Katie says.

  “I don’t think it’s horseshit,” Loretta says.

  I don’t say it, but there’s something about these three people in my car that feels familiar. As if my DNA had known all along what was going on. As if genes know more than we do as fully formed human beings.

  Something about Malcolm and Katie and Loretta feels like I have a family now, and I guess I do. A crazy family who’s going to New Jersey to find our missing cousin. Mom was right about it being a day I’d never forget.

  Marla & Gottfried’s Goodbye

  Marla and Gottfried stand at the front door, waving.