Marla has her secret blood; Gottfried has his secret birds.

  They watch four of their five grown children interact, and Gottfried can’t help but grimace. How did these four people come from the same household? My household?

  “We should really get together more often,” Jean says to Harry.

  “We should go out for a girls’ night,” Missy says to Amber.

  The unspoken no has power here because all of them have it.

  Jean gets in her car, and Marla can see her lips moving even though she’s by herself. A lot of words that start with F.

  Amber and Missy walk around the back of the house together. Marla doesn’t want to know what they’re talking about; she knows they’re talking about her. She’s as sure of it as she’s sure Matt’s daughter is never coming home. As sure of it as she’s sure of how her body made defective children because of the blood.

  The damn blood.

  I know it makes no sense. I know it’s ridiculous. I know it’s stupid and the longer I keep it, the worse it gets. I don’t have anyone to tell. Thought I’d be able to tell Jean one day, but I gave her the same disease. Gottfried is useless. What would he say if I told him? I tried to tell the doctor once but that was after Matt was born. When I hit bottom.

  Been drowning since. Thoughts running so fast behind my eyes I can’t keep up with who I think I am today. Who are you today, Marla? You’re a proud mother and grandmother. You’re a proud maker of pineapple stuffing.

  You are a fake, Marla. You’re no mother. You’re no grandmother. You’re only a maker of stuffing. A hider of eggs. An inventor of stories about why you are the way you are.

  It’s not the blood, Marla. It’s the way Jean and Harry fight. It’s the way Matt doesn’t come home anymore.

  It’s not the blood. It’s you. It’s the way you are. Can’t change. Can’t just be nice. Tunnel never closes.

  Loretta’s Strainer

  Loretta sits in the front seat of her cousin’s car and the audience is fading. This is her last show. From now on, the audience will be her family. That’ll take a while to get used to.

  Malcolm, the one with the dying father, told her that she had real balls to make those balloon shapes after dinner. She still can’t figure out why it’s such a big deal.

  She thinks about Gerald and Dolly and Cynthia. There’s a dog that likes to wander the woods behind Marla and Gottfried’s house. She reckons she’ll put them on the dog and wave goodbye.

  No place for a flea circus in that big house.

  She’s becoming someone else now.

  The thought of this scares her.

  She turns down the volume on her cousin’s car stereo and says, “I’m scared to change schools.” No one says anything, so she adds, “How do I fit in?”

  “You’ll do okay,” Malcolm says. “The teachers are cool. It’s just mostly entitled white kids as far as the eye can see. It’s not like we have to go to a well to pump water for lunch, you know?”

  Loretta says, “Well, that’s always good.”

  There’s silence in the car. The shoveler reaches for the volume dial on the stereo, and Loretta stops him.

  “Can you guys just be my friends and that way I don’t have to hang out with anyone else?”

  “Sure,” Katie says.

  “Promise?” Loretta asks.

  All three of her cousins agree. Loretta will be their friend.

  The faint audience applauds and whistles. Loretta bows and smiles and picks up the roses thrown at her feet. She watches as people make their way into the aisles and out the tent openings until the center ring is dark and the smell of popcorn has faded. Now it’s just Loretta in her sequins.

  “Oh! Take the next exit. We’re nearly there,” she says.

  Jake & Bill will never speak of it again

  Bill Marks must have noticed he left Ashley at his parents’ house about an hour after he left. Ashley was doing dishes with his mother when her phone, still on the dinner table, sounded an incoming text. She ignored it.

  Suddenly, Bill Marks is in the kitchen with a pistol. Bill points it at his mother.

  Ashley screams. “Fuck!”

  Bill is wide-eyed. Sweating. Meth? Jake wonders. Bill looks like a mix of Bill and someone else. Something else. Something animal.

  “Put the fucking gun down, Bill,” Mr. Marks says. His cell phone is in his hand, and no one else in the room knows he’s already dialed 911.

  “Whatever he told you, it’s not true!” Bill yells.

  The four people not holding a pistol look at one another. Or more accurately, three of them look at Jake.

  “I didn’t tell them anything,” he says.

  “You said you were gonna tell them,” Bill says.

  “I didn’t get to it yet.”

  Bill rushes forward and puts the pistol to Jake’s head. “And you fucking won’t!”

  Mr. Marks lunges at his elder son and hits him in the middle. The gun flies into the air and lands with a thud. Bill starts punching his father, and Jake tries to pull him off.

  Bill has something in him for sure. Has the strength of a horse.

  Ashley’s screams are the only normal thing in the house aside from the décor. Everyone else is used to this violence. Everyone else is used to Bill’s wake. Waves that ripple for weeks and months and years.

  When the police arrive, they have no idea they’re about to solve a missing-persons case that’s nearly two years old.

  Bill says, “I didn’t do nothing! It was all Jake!”

  Bill says, “I’m a quarter Mexican! This is police brutality!”

  Marla & Gottfried’s Beach House

  Marla and Gottfried sit in their matching recliner chairs. Marla has the day’s newspaper open in front of her, but she isn’t reading. Gottfried is on his smartphone looking at his investment account.

  He looks at Marla and wants to say something about how it was nice to have the family home, all in one place, for the first time in years. He says nothing.

  Missy went to spend the night with Amber, and he can’t say that doesn’t make him happy. He can barely remember what things were like when the kids were growing up. He spent nearly all his time figuring out how to make the most amount of money from his hundred and fifty acres.

  He puts his phone down and asks Marla, “Why didn’t we do better by them?”

  “By who?”

  “The kids.”

  “They did fine on their own,” she says.

  “No. They didn’t.”

  “You’re not thinking about Matt, are you?”

  Gottfried hadn’t been thinking about Matt, but he was now. Poor Matt. “No.”

  “Stop thinking about the past,” Marla says. “Nothing you can do about it.”

  “I can do something now, though.”

  Marla folds down the corner of the paper and looks at her husband.

  “I want to buy a beach house,” he says. Really, he wants to buy them each a house of their own. Except Jean—she’s loaded.

  “So do it. Buy a beach house.”

  “I want to give them all a key.”

  “Imagine the mess they’ll make,” Marla says.

  “They’re grown. They know how to clean up.”

  “That party Harry threw when we went to Atlantic City that one time,” Marla says. “The V all over the porch.”

  Gottfried remembers what it was like for Marla to arrive home to vomit all over the porch. Beer bottles scattered in the backyard.

  “That was 1994.”

  “Still,” Marla says, from behind the newspaper.

  “Jean turned out a lot like you,” Gottfried says.

  “She did.”

  Gottfried wants to say how much of a shame that is, but he knows Marla will never understand. He says nothing. Picks up his smartphone again and starts to look for beach houses.

  Easter is over. All Marla did once the house was empty was complain about the mess. There was no mess. And that’s the thing. Marla always saw a mess when there wasn’t one. Always clung to her ideas as if something were holding her back from growing.

  Gottfried can’t blame her. He had his robins. They held him back, too.

  Things were different. Nothing their generation can do about the next ones. That’s what he says, anyway. Harry used to argue with him. Still does. Says Generation X got a raw deal. Now these younger generations are in the news all the time saying they got a raw deal, too.

  Gottfried feels proud of what he did to survive. Never once thinks about how it would feel if his own son would do the same to him as he did to his father. Just thinks he was smart to do it. Good father. Good husband. Good provider. He looked out for his family.

  But the robins never fade. Every day he hears the unmistakable sound of impact. Sees the feathers flying. Cries in the car wash. They may have got a raw deal, but something about his kids and grandkids is different from his generation.

  Until today, he’d never talked about the farm. Now, when he closes his eyes, he can see the logo from the family business. A potato plant. Leaves up top, potatoes down below. All those stems and roots joining the two—like veins and arteries. His father always said that families were the same. Everything was connected, everything worked in synchronicity.

  Gottfried got to see the sun and he got to flower. His kids were harvested from shallow soil. His grandkids, accidental plants for the most part, would eventually mature and one day they, too, would rise up from the dirt, their brittle roots still connected.

  It’s the best anyone can hope for.

  The Shoveler’s Strainer

  I take the exit onto the New Jersey Turnpike. Malcolm says there’s about twenty minutes to go. I see a sign for Rancocas State Park and point at it. Loretta acts excited. Malcolm and Katie whisper in the back seat. I need a cigarette, but it feels rude to smoke with all these people in the car.

  Katie says, “It’s not like we can dig her up, right?”

  “Jesus, no,” I say.

  “Aren’t we going to look suspicious considering you have a shovel in the car?” she asks.

  “I told you. I don’t carry that anymore.”

  “Right,” Katie says.

  Loretta starts to cry. From excitement to tears in one second flat. I’ve never met anyone like her.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “If this is all true. All of this? Then we’re about to find a dead person. Our dead cousin. That’s sad is all. Really sad.”

  “I wish I would have known her,” Malcolm says. “I never really met her, I don’t think.”

  “None of us did,” Katie says. “Matt didn’t want any of us to know her.”

  It’s all too much for me. I wanted a family, not another mystery. But maybe all families are mysteries. Maybe all families have secrets. Maybe none of us is perfect, ever.

  Suddenly not knowing who my dad is seems small. Realistically, I am someone’s son and I always have been. Mom has always been here. Always.

  “Exit five to Mount Holly—that’s us,” Loretta says. “Maybe Katie’s mom was right and the girl ran away.”

  “Maybe there’s no body to find,” I say. “That would be a relief.”

  I put on my turn signal and get off on Exit 5.

  “She left me the plate,” Malcolm says. “It was her. I’m telling you. I’m getting messages from the Consciousness. We’re going to find her.”

  “The Consciousness?” Loretta asks.

  “Long story,” Malcolm says. “Just trust me.”

  * * *

  Every car I pass on the small road into Rancocas State Park is Mr. ________son’s. He’s there to camp. To fish. To hike. He’s there to bury a body. To dig one up. To hide Easter eggs. To watch the stars. He’s there to relax after a hard week at the office. He’s running from the law. Variables.

  My last set of variables. Because this has to stop now. Life’s too short to live the whole thing underground. Hey, Mr. ________son! I don’t give a shit anymore.

  “Almost there,” Loretta says, staring at the phone map.

  “Park and we’ll have to walk in,” Malcolm says.

  “Duh,” someone says. “It’s a forest.”

  We park. Get out of the car. Stand facing the coordinates.

  “I’m scared,” Loretta says.

  “Me too,” everyone else says.

  It’s dark as hell in here. None of us brought a real flashlight.

  THE FREAK LOVES SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF PEOPLE IN THE FOREST!

  The Freak’s been doing this for what feels like eternity, but it’s only been about two years. Flickering. Haunting. Jumping out from behind trees to scare lovers who thought this was a good place to make out.

  Four people are approaching. Two girls. Two boys. She knows them all. She was just in their back seat quoting a Spanish proverb. Fact is, she doesn’t want to leave them. She wants to be like Loretta—a new friend. She wants to be alive.

  Alive. Almost every one of the living takes this for granted.

  Taking things for granted is the privilege of existence. The living don’t even think about it, same as boys aren’t scared to go missing at the mall. Same as her white cousins can drive over the speed limit across state lines to New Jersey. Same as her grandfather didn’t think twice about selling the family farm.

  She flickers so she can get her fill of the world. First to a place with kangaroos. She waves to the kangaroos. Then to a large city filled with people on bicycles. She waves to the people. Then to what feels like the coldest place on Earth. She waves to the snow. She flickers to so many places so she doesn’t have to meet her cousins. Not looking like this. Not as a dirt burrito. Not naked.

  Sheep, eagles, penguins, whales, water, trees, mountains, stars, fresh air she can’t breathe. Flickers. Flickers.

  CanIHelpYou?’s Freakish Cousin

  As we walk closer to the coordinates, the air gets colder. None of us talk. I want to stop and take a breath, but they’re all walking so fast I don’t want to lose them.

  We’re using our phone flashlights, and it’s weird having three beams of light shining toward the same nothing. Just forest. More trees. Loretta’s sequins throw light around the trunks and scare the shit out of me.

  I need a Xanax. I need a joint. I need something to make this okay.

  Finding a body. Solving a mystery. Being with my cousins and actually feeling like I have a family. Like—these are my family members. They have potential, which is more than I can say about the rest of the guests at Easter dinner.

  Somebody’s phone rings.

  “It’s my dad,” Malcolm says.

  “Please tell me you turned off your phone finder,” I say.

  “I did.”

  “Don’t answer it,” I say.

  “I have to. He could be dying.”

  We all stop. Fifteen yards from the coordinates, we stop. Malcolm answers his phone. Tells his dad he’s just hanging out with us at Dairy Queen.

  You can’t figure out why we’re doing this. And frankly, neither can we. Look at our faces. None of us has any idea why we’re doing this. You’ll blame our underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes. You’ll blame our lack of responsibility. You’ll blame anything so long as you don’t have to blame yourselves.

  There’s a dead girl in the forest.

  We’ll find her.

  You didn’t.

  * * *

  “So what do we do now?” David asks. He says he wants me to call him the shoveler, but I can’t. I can’t call Loretta the Ringmistress, either. I want to be called Katie from now on, too. We have names. We’re just so used to being labeled, we took to it.

  We all point our flashlights at the spot. The forest floor looks normal. Nothing out of place.

  “Maybe we’re not in the right spot,” I say.

  “Look,” Loretta says, pointing to something five feet away.

  It’s a lighter.

  “Look,” she says again, pointing the other direction.

  It’s a pink plastic egg with a wrapper from a mini Hershey bar next to it.

  “Look,” she says again. She’s pointing at me.

  I’m your weed dealer. I’m your fast-food dealer. I’m your advice dealer. Never in a million years did you think I was smart enough to solve a crime. And maybe I wasn’t. But I bet you don’t have the balls to do something like this. The food made you slow. The drugs made you tired. The advice made you lazy.

  “What?” I say.

  But behind me, there’s a voice.

  “You should call the police now,” The Freak says. “You don’t want to see what’s under there.”

  David looks at me and then back at The Freak. He has tears in his eyes.

  We all back away from the coordinates. The Freak comes with us.

  Malcolm calls the police. He says, “We think we found the body of a missing girl . . . it’s doesn’t really matter how . . . we can tell you when you get here . . . we’re her cousins.” He gives them the coordinates and says we’ll wait. When he hangs up, he says, “I don’t know who said that. It was like my voice was controlled by something else.”

  “That was me. Sorry,” The Freak says.

  We all stare at her. Frankly, and this is probably bad timing, but I think about how cool it would be to be able to control other people’s mouths. Like force-fed healthy bacteria.

  “I’m suddenly realizing how stupid our story’s going to sound,” David says.

  “It’s not stupid,” Loretta says.

  “A ghost came to us and told us where to find her?” David says. “That’s crazy.”