I face-shrug at him.

  “Long before your spiked eggnog, Vernon and I had our man time.”

  “ ‘Man time’?” Marta says. She seems dazed and furious, both.

  The mister goes on in the hothouse. Uncanny timing because I just started to sweat.

  “You knew about the eggnog?” I ask.

  “I approved it,” Henry says.

  I blink and blink and blink and I don’t know what to say.

  Then Vernon Walks In

  “You let Henry drink in first grade?” I ask Vernon. I’m not asking. I’m yelling. I’m accusing. I’m pointing right at him. “You fed us lies and all that trash about our mother and then you gave us alcohol?”

  Vernon turns to leave. Milorad steps in front of the door.

  “Awfully hot in here,” Vernon says.

  “You can’t pretend you don’t hear me,” I say.

  “The frogs are going to love this place,” Vernon says. “I’m so glad you built this, Henry. I’m very proud of you.”

  Henry looks at him and then at the floor.

  There’s a sound from outside. A hand on the door handle. Finch arrives, squeezes past Milorad, and steps toward Vernon, putting her hand on his arm.

  “Did you tell them?” she asks.

  Vernon looks uncomfortable. “Didn’t seem the place.”

  She raises her eyebrows and glares at him.

  He says, “I’m divorcing Mina when she gets back.”

  When he says this, it’s not gloating or giddy. It’s as if he’s being forced to lie. But unlike his lies to God or his lies to reporters from Spin or his lies to Mother or me or Henry or Marta, this is one he’s purposefully fucking up. As if he wants us to know he’s lying.

  Right on his face begins Vernon’s slow realization that he never had control of anything. And yet, he doesn’t know why.

  For once, I am not the last person to know a thing.

  LESSON THIRTEEN: SPRING CLEANING

  When you clean things, you find things.

  An hour later, Marta is in a frenzy of spring cleaning in the kitchen, emptying and wiping down the insides of the cabinets and drawers.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “This is how I deal with stress,” she says. “Where’s Henry?”

  “Hothouse with Milorad.”

  “Good,” she says. “Vernon and Finch went for a walk.”

  She hands me a few little bins from the top shelf of a cabinet, and I help her clean them out.

  She says, “Vernon won’t let me tell Mina.”

  “Well, I’ll tell her, then.” I put out my hand for her phone.

  She points and I go get it from the counter. She tells me her passcode and I dial up Mother, knowing she will probably be onstage in Denmark, which is where I think she is today.

  It rings twice and goes to voicemail. I leave a message.

  It’s Jane and I don’t quite know how to explain what happened here today but…everyone is okay, though Henry nearly wasn’t. He had alcohol poisoning and it was scary and Vernon won’t let Marta call you about it so I’m doing it because we really just need you to come home now. I love you.

  After a few more cabinets, I say I’m going to take a nap and I go to my room.

  I’m in my usual spot in the en suite, ready to back up my newest home movie mixtapes to my cloud. When I sign into the cloud where the home movies are, the interface has changed. It startles me. At first, I think Vernon has changed things because he has found me out. Then I see a small message at the top of the page that says there’s been a software update.

  The cameras used to be numbered, one through five, but now there are words here, too. And the numbers are different. There’s a “06_kitchen” and a “07_pool” that were never here before. There used to be five cameras. Now there are seven.

  I go first for the pool camera folder—I’ve always been able to see pool scenes from the patio camera, so I’m curious. I play Spin the Family Wheel and land on a random date in 2021.

  Home Movie—10.12.2021

  Milorad walks into the kitchen area of the pool house in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt and fills up his electric teakettle. Once he presses the On switch, he goes to the bathroom and pees with the door open.

  He burps.

 

  There is a camera inside the pool house, spying on Milorad. Gross. I click back to the menu.

  I go to the kitchen folder.

  It takes me forty-six tries to find what I’m looking for.

  Home Movie—06.10.2012

  I am under the table in the kitchen. I am four years old.

  “Just leave me alone!” Mother yells as she runs in. She hovers at the doorway, listening for him, and then backs her way toward the back door of the kitchen.

  “God dammit, will you just stop running?” Vernon screams.

  “Just stop. Stop there. Stop chasing me,” she says.

  “I have things to say!” he yells.

  “Can you please give me some space?” she says.

  “Not until I say what I need to say.” He moves closer to her. She backs toward the door slowly.

  “I’m scared, Vernon. If you could please just give me a minute alone—”

  “Why do you deserve a minute alone? Since when do you give me a minute alone?”

  “All the time, really. But that’s not the point. You’ve been yelling at me for two hours and I’m tired and confused. I need to—”

  “I’ve been yelling?” he yells. “More like you’ve been yelling!”

  “I just need some space,” she says.

  He lunges toward her and stands right in her face, puts his arms on either side of her on the counter behind her and traps her where she stands.

 

  The reason I was even in the kitchen was because Marta was out in the garden with Milorad. I was waiting for her to come back because she said she had homemade ice cream. I heard the argument upstairs and heard it tumbling down the stairs, but I didn’t expect any of this. Vernon would tell me that Mother was unreasonable or other things (on drugs, crazy, mentally ill, unfit to parent, and one time, he used the R word) but the action was not on display.

  Anyway, Vernon has short arms, and when he trapped Mother in the kitchen that day, it made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I could see on her face that’s how it made her feel, too.

 

  “Vernon, please,” she says.

  “Please what?”

  “Please give me some space.”

  He grins at her an inch from her face. She is crying dry tears. The look on her face is terror. I stand under the table and can’t tell what to do. I want to help her. I know if I say something to let them know I’m here, it will help her but I can’t move.

  “You always do this to me!” Vernon says. “You’re just a control freak!”

  “Please just give me some space.”

  He lifts his arms fast and violent to free her. In doing so, he slams his wrist into her ear. She reaches up and touches it and then backs toward the door some more, her hand reaching for the drawer unit next to her.

  “Mina wants space!” he mocks. “Mina wants space because she’s scared! And everyone knows Mina gets what she wants because she has to have all the power!”

  Mother takes a breath—the first I’ve seen her take since she got here. It’s quiet and shallow and through her nose. She’s thinking. You can see it on her forehead.

  “Mina has been abused for eleven years! Poor Mina! Here’s my cross! Vernon’s been an asshole to me for eleven years and I’m still here!”

  Mother breathes again. You can see in Vernon’s eyes it annoys him.

  He moves toward her fast. She opens the drawer next to her and pulls out a small utility knife. She holds it in front of her. This makes Vernon double over in laughter.

  He laughs and laughs.

  I watch her breathe again. Small, short, shallow. I swear her pupils are so tiny they’re like the tip of a pin. She backs toward the back door.

  He fake-lunges at her. She flinches and takes a fast step toward the door.

  He laughs again. “Are you going to stab me, Mina?”

  “Please just give me some space,” she says. Her voice is flat. Empty.

  “But don’t you want to stab me first?”

  “Please.”

  They stare at each other for a few seconds. Mother is barely breathing—controlled but shallow—and she seems aware of every single nerve and muscle in her body and his. Vernon breathes heavily, as if he’s just run up three flights of steps. Mother keeps backing toward the door, the knife in front of her. Vernon stays put this time but stares into her eyes.

  “I can’t take this abusive crap from you anymore,” he says.

  She says nothing.

  “You’re just an asshole, you know,” he says. “I tell you over and over again that I’m trying and all you ever do is want to win. I hope you’re happy now, Mina.”

  She says nothing.

  He doesn’t move from where he’s standing. She’s still holding the knife in front of her defensively. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He does some stuff on the screen and then talks into it.

  “Hi, yeah. I need to report someone threatening to kill me.”

  Mina takes a deep breath now and backs her last few steps to the door, turns the doorknob and opens it.

  “She’s been holding a knife to my throat for about ten minutes. But now she’s escaping out the back door. Yes. It’s my wife. She does this sometimes. Quite loopy in the head.” He gives our address.

  As he says this, he goes to the knife drawer and pulls out a steak knife. He puts it to his abdomen and considers stabbing himself. You can see the thoughts on his face. His cowardice arrives in his eyebrows. He puts the knife in the pocket of his cargo pants and goes to the back door and walks out.

 

  Change to the patio camera.

 

  She hears the door close and gets up from the bench. Her face is wet.

  He starts walking toward her quickly. He reaches into his pants pocket. She gets up quickly and starts to run away from him—toward the French doors to the study. She holds the knife in front of her as she runs. She turns her head periodically to make sure of where he is. He isn’t running. He is stalking with long, sure strides. He’s catching up to her. The double doors are locked and she can’t get into the study. She doubles back toward the kitchen door and starts to sprint. He aims to block her. She fakes left and breaks right, then gets to the kitchen door and when she gets through it—

 

  Change to the kitchen camera.

 

  —she closes it and locks it. Then she takes a deep breath and stands there and stares up at the ceiling.

  Then, “Marta?”

  I am still under the table.

 

  I wanted to tell her that Marta was with Milorad. My throat didn’t work.

 

  “Marta?” she yells again.

  She stands there for a minute, taking deep breaths, then sobs quietly into her hands, then another deep breath, then climbs the back staircase to Marta’s quarters.

  Thirty seconds after Mother climbs the steps, in the background of the home movie, you can hear Vernon stomping around the house and slamming things around. In the foreground of the frame, though, there is Brutus the rat.

 

  I remember seeing it from under the table—the rat. I remember exactly where it was on the kitchen floor. I remember what happened. Brutus didn’t see me under the table either. Which is why it felt safe, I guess, to turn into Aunt Finch, who walked into the dining room.

  I was four years old and didn’t trust what I saw. Part of me always knew it was real, but I always doubted until I found the home movies.

 

  Change to the dining room camera.

 

  “Mina! I’m leaving!” Vernon shouts from the dining room. “I won’t be coming back this time! You’ll hear from my lawyer!” He has a box of things on the table and his usual suitcase by the doorway to the foyer. “If you want to talk about this, now’s your time to do it!” he yells up the stairs.

  He turns to Finch. “Did she leave? Did you see her out there?”

  Finch shakes her head no.

  He takes off his wedding ring and places it delicately on the table and turns back to Finch. Without a word, the two of them walk out the front door. My little four-year-old self cries then. All the fear and confusion shows on my face.

  “Mother!” I yell. “Mother!”

  Mother comes to the kitchen and finds me. She picks me up and holds me in her arms, and I sob and she keeps saying, “You’re safe. I promise. You’re safe.”

 

  But I wasn’t. And she wasn’t. And now, almost thirteen years later, I’m about to make sure we’re safer than we’ve ever been before.

  Press Release

  Mother has drafted a press release. Marta shows me a social media post on her phone before she serves dinner. There has been a family emergency. I am needed at home. Tour is canceled.

  Marta says, “Things are about to move really fast.”

  This is a welcome idea. Today has been the longest I’ve ever lived.

  When I go to the dining room to sit with Henry, we hear Vernon yelling. Stay where you are! We need the money!…Ugh! Why don’t you ever listen to me?

  Moments later, he arrives to the dining room calm, for dinner.

  He looks at me and Henry and nods but says nothing.

  As Marta dishes fat egg noodles onto the plate, he asks, “Is that tuna casserole?” Marta then breaks the crunchy surface of the casserole and ladles it on top of the noodles.

  “Yes!” Henry says. Everyone knows Henry loves tuna casserole. Everyone knows Vernon hates tuna casserole.

  Once Marta serves, she goes back to the kitchen and Vernon pushes himself away from the table. As he’s about to get up, Henry says, “Manners, Vernon.”

  He replies, “Oh, please,” and then leaves the dining room, and it’s just me and Henry.

  We eat for a while silently. I think of telling him about the reclaiming and it feels too risky even if he’s not being controlled by Vernon anymore.

  “Mother is coming home tomorrow,” he says.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Quite good,” I say.

  “Mmmm.”

  We eat in more quiet. Henry dishes a small second portion to his plate. We can both hear Vernon stomping around in his bedroom, drawers opening and closing.

  “Sounds like it’s a three-bag pack,” I say.

  “Let him fuck off,” he says. “Forever.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I need a drink,” he says.

  “Oh, Henry.”

  “I know,” he says. I stand behind him and wrap my arms around him and kiss him on his head and tell him how proud I am that he’s doing the right thing. When Milorad cleared out the greenhouse, he found so many bottles. Henry cries softly and puts his fork down. Goes weak in my arms and says, “I’m so ashamed.”

  “You didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “I hid all those bottles. I hid another fifteen in my room. I’m a fucking drunk!”

  “I thought it was just me,” I say. “He must have been poisoning you as young as n—”

  “Seven,” he says.

  “Oh,” I say. “What a dreadful father.”

  “Worst.” He starts shaking and sobbing really hard. He’s quiet about it, but his body is quaking. “I was so bad to Mother!” Sobs. More sobs. “I threw shit at her! And ignored her! Do you remember?” he asks. “Do you remember that first year she was locked in? Ugh!” he groans. “We were helping to kill her. We nearly did! We nearly killed our own mom!”

  “We didn’t, Henry. Stop. Don’t overthink it.”

  He removes my arms from around his shoulders. “I’m not overthinking. We nearly killed her. You know what I’m talking about.”

  The Great Ignoring

  It was the year our mother went mad. Rightfully. Vernon had locked her up on The Christmas That Changed Everything and then, a week later, commanded us to not ever look at her. For an entire year. Not even if she begged or cried or beat on the capsule walls. Even one time when she cracked away at the capsule door with the chair until the chair broke. We didn’t look. There was punishment for looking. And reward for not looking. By February 2019, I’d been grounded to my room four times until I learned to obey the new rules.

  “How come it didn’t make you into a drunk?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I answer.

  “She used to scream so loud,” he says. He sobs into his own hands. I pull my dinner chair over next to his and sit down. “We just let her. How did we do that? How did we even do that?”

  “We were staying safe,” I say. “We had no other choice. Even before she was locked up entirely, Henry—remember the things he’d say? About how shitty she was when we knew she wasn’t shitty? That’s how we did that. And it wasn’t our fault.”

  “It was my arm that threw things at her,” he says. “I THREW THINGS AT HER!”

  “So did I.”

  “I told her I hoped she died!” he says. “I’m a fucking monster!” The look on his face is like nothing I can describe.

  “I did, too,” I say softly. “But who else threw things on game nights?”

  He stops and thinks.

  “I’m just asking you to stop blaming yourself. Not when there were two adults who were clearly influencing you.”

  “Not to mention making me a drunk.”