“Do you even hear yourself?” I ask.

  “Mina, trust me, it wasn’t about you. It was—it was—Finch hates you,” he starts. “She’s so jealous.”

  We all stay quiet. Marta is humming a little under her breath.

  “I was looking for an ally, I guess.”

  “You certainly found one,” I say.

  “Shut up, Jane.”

  “Stop telling Jane to shut up,” Henry says.

  “You should go,” Mother says.

  “You should definitely go,” Marta says.

  At this, Vernon gets up, walks out the back door, and sits on the patio bench. We all sigh.

  Then the phone rings.

  Henry walks over to the kitchen phone and answers. He smiles and laughs at whatever the person says, and then, “Yeah,” he says. “She’s right here,” and hands the phone to me.

  “Hey! You got plans for today?” It’s Gretchen.

  “Today, yeah.”

  “You good?”

  “Yeah. Things are good. My mom’s home,” I say. “I have a lot to tell you guys.”

  “Wanna hit the mall later? We’re going, like, every day this week so—”

  “Air hockey!” KZ yells.

  “And that anime you love is in the theater. The one you told us to watch.”

  “Howl’s Moving Castle?” I ask. With that, Henry’s ears perk up.

  “Yeah!” she says. “So—yes?”

  The weirdest thing happens in my body. A war starts. More than one. I freeze and don’t answer Gretchen.

  Mother must see it because she gets my attention with a little wave. I say, “Hold on,” to Gretchen.

  “You should totally go out with your friends,” Mother says.

  “I have to be here for the demolition.”

  She motions to Vernon on the patio. “I think the so-called grown-ups have some things to do before we get to that. Plus, I just flew in and need sleep. I promise I won’t so much as look at those tubes without you here.”

  I say to Gretchen, “Can I bring Henry?”

  “Of course! We’re in the driveway! Come out when you’re ready.”

  “My driveway?”

  I can hear Porter there, too—they all laugh.

  Henry’s face is like a puppy’s, and he looks to Mother and Marta and then goes upstairs to get ready.

  I hang up and look at them. “Are you sure you’re safe?”

  Mother says, “I’ve been defusing this bomb for a while now. Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t have a phone or—”

  Marta hands me Milorad’s old phone, then shoos me away with a smile. “Go have fun.”

  I stop and look at them both as if it might be the last time. Something about leaving right now feels wrong. Everything about it feels wrong.

  Henry arrives back in the kitchen. “I brushed my teeth, and I have enough money for all our tickets because I’ve saved every dollar they ever gave me for spying on you.”

  I don’t even ask. I just go upstairs and put on my favorite leggings and an oversized sweatshirt. The wars go on inside of me—the war between the perceived safety of isolation and the inherent danger of having friends the loudest—and I walk out the front door with Henry.

  * * *

  —

  Six hours later, we’ve seen one movie, played more than twenty games of air hockey, three games of pool, walked the mall in circles six times, eaten tacos, and Henry and I tried queso for the first time. When we get home, Vernon is still sitting on the patio bench, Mother is sleeping off her jet lag, the letter is gone from the cabinet where I put it, and Marta makes us real hot chocolate, which puts us to sleep fast.

  LESSON FOURTEEN: SPRING BREAK

  Today is Monday, March 24, 2025

  Search and Destroy

  We all know how this is going to unfold. It’s a matter of logic and finesse, defusing a bomb.

  He’s sitting on the patio bench in the morning sun wearing his bathrobe. His eyes are closed, arms are crossed. Milorad is nearby in the greenhouse, gently watering vegetable seedlings and humming something lively.

  “You’re up early,” I say, standing next to Vernon, eating a bagel.

  He’s breathing through his nose. In and out. In and out.

  “Hope you slept well,” I say.

  He sighs to himself.

  “You’re acting like I’m invisible.”

  “No I’m not,” he says. Note to self: all it takes is an allegation. “I couldn’t sleep past six for some reason.”

  “Daylight savings, maybe,” I say.

  “Whatever.” He stands up and starts pacing.

  “Maybe a walk would help.”

  “Just shut up, Jane.” He paces as if he has something to do. He has nothing to do.

  “Okay.”

  “You think you’re so smart, but you’re not, you know.”

  “Sure.” I look up at my bedroom window.

  “You think you’re the big professor,” he says.

  I nod and squint into the sun.

  “What do you have to say to that, then?” he asks.

  I don’t say anything.

  Vernon flops back into the bench.

  “Did you ever love me?” he asks.

  I don’t think the question is for me, so I don’t answer.

  “Did you?” he says—looking up at me, standing here.

  I answer, “It was never enough.”

  I walk to the greenhouse and greet Milorad. He says, “He has been there since sunrise. I do not think he slept.”

  “He’s moving out today,” I say quietly.

  Milorad nods and says, “Brutus is escaped. Do not open door to pool house.”

  “Okay,” I answer. There is a faint song coming from Henry’s hothouse—as if the tree frogs heard me say the magic words he’s moving out today and are throwing a party.

  I walk back to Vernon. “Where will you go?”

  “With Finch.”

  “Ah.”

  “Though she isn’t answering my texts or my calls,” he says.

  “Huh,” I say. “Love is hard sometimes, I guess.”

  Then, I check the cabinet to see if the letter is gone—and it is. Since Mother is still asleep and he’s still sitting on the bench, I go to my room and I do my own reclaiming.

  I navigate to Vernon’s email account. It takes me a few tries to guess Vernon4Finch!, but after that it only takes moment to transfer control of the home movie archive to me.

  I still have so many hours of footage to watch. So many memories to check. So many tragedies to figure out. I never did find the footage of the time he shook me so hard my neck got sore. Or the day he slapped Mother so hard that it sounded like a gun. I don’t even know if they were real. For now, while the grown-ups figure out how to get him to leave and never come back, I want something comforting, so I aim for my fifth birthday—the one I’ve been saving for a bad day.

  Home Movie—03.03.2013

  I am adorable. I want everyone to see me being adorable, so I walk around the dining room saying “Hello!” Marta says hello back and touches me on my nose—a boop on the snoot as she would say. Henry is only a toddler but he blurts out an “Ewoo” and giggles. Mother says, “Hello, Jane!” and Vernon says, “Yes, Jane, of course.”

  Marta places dishes on the table at each setting.

 

  I find myself bored by these normal-seeming bits. It’s as if, for the first few years of our lives, Henry and I had real parents. They weren’t perfect but Mother was all Hello, Jane! and not locked in the System, and Vernon was Yes, Jane, of course and not fucking Aunt Finch and talking shit.

  I fast-forward.

 

  Marta brings the cake to the table. There are five candles, and the frosting is deep and very frilly. As the room sings “Happy Birthday” to me, I frown and think hard about my wish. And when they’re done and Henry is still toddler-humming the song, I take a deep breath and blow the candles out.

 

  I remember my wish vividly.

 

  Marta cuts and serves the cake and we eat. Mother feeds Henry some bites of her cake, and he indicates that he wants more. Marta gives him his own slice and places a baby spoon in his hand. He throws the baby spoon on the floor and eats the cake with his hands, squishing streams of cake through the gaps between his tiny fingers and spreading the icing all over his face. Vernon takes a picture with his phone. Everyone laughs. I keep eating like a proper girl—that’s Vernon’s term for a girl with manners and who doesn’t throw her fork on the floor. I am sitting up straight, not even a slight slouch, and I have my napkin on my lap and my plate as close to the edge of the table as possible so I can’t drop any crumbs. Everyone in the room is watching Henry shove fistfuls of cake in his tiny mouth.

  I finish my cake and get up and leave the room. Mother and Vernon sit on either side of Henry and don’t say anything to each other. Vernon glares, mostly, while Mother cleans Henry’s face up and talks to him.

  “Why do you always talk to him like he’s an adult?” he asks.

  Mother gives him a look like he’s weird.

  “Most mothers coo over their babies,” he says.

  Mother ignores him.

  “You don’t even have a baby nickname for him!” Vernon says. “I read in a book that any mother who doesn’t give her baby a nickname or coo at them isn’t fit!”

  Mother doesn’t take her attention off Henry as she answers, “Where did you read that, Vernon?”

  “Does it matter?” he asks. “It won’t help you be a better mother.”

  Mother sighs.

  Vernon gets up from the table.

  “It’s time for presents!” Mother says. She unclips Henry from his high chair and holds him close, giving him a kiss on the face and then a few on his head as she brushes the crumbs off his clothing.

  Vernon stands watching her and looks uncomfortable.

  Mother moves through the doorway to the sitting room.

  When Vernon is alone in the room, he pinches between his eyes, as if he has a headache.

 

  Mother walks into the sitting room holding Henry, still kissing his head. She looks around.

  “Jane?” she asks.

  I am not in the room, so I do not answer.

  Mother looks behind the settee and the big chair. She looks concerned. Henry grabs a fistful of her hair and pulls and she doesn’t seem to notice as she walks to the French doors that lead to the garden patio. One of the doors is open.

  “Jane?” she calls out toward the garden. She then walks outside with Henry.

  As she exits, Vernon enters. “Mina?”

  He looks around but no one is there. “MINA?”

  Vernon plops himself in the overstuffed chair by the fireplace. He eyes the wrapped presents on the couch. Then he looks at the fire in the fireplace, walks over to the wood basket, and pokes around in the embers with an iron poker. He puts a log on the fire and then sits back down.

 

  I am uncomfortable looking at this. I don’t know why because I picked it on purpose because I remember this day as happy. I remember the presents I got. I got a xylophone and my first guitar. I remember Henry playing a percussion egg nonstop and all of us laughing. I don’t remember any of this brooding or mood. I don’t remember how straight I’d sat eating my cake.

  I want to stop watching it, but I can’t seem to move.

 

  “There you are!” Vernon says when I appear in front of him. “You had your mother yelling and frantic!”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll save you from her temper,” he says, and opens his arms.

  I look at him dubiously, then I look into the fire, and then at my presents.

  “Come sit here,” Vernon says, patting his lap.

  I keep staring at the presents and start to wander toward the door to the patio, which is cracked open.

  “Jane!” he snaps.

  I run toward him and get on his lap. He holds me tight and rocks me side to side. I do not look comfortable. I start to try to break free of his arms, but he keeps them lovingly locked around my little arms.

  I fidget violently as if I’m having a mild Victorian seizure. Vernon is startled by this and picks me up and puts me on the floor in front of him.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Getting warm, Daddy!”

  He grabs me then, by my upper arms and pulls me toward him with violent precision.

  “Don’t ever call me that again!” he says, shaking me a little as he enunciates each syllable. “You know that! You know that!” His face is suddenly bulging as if there’s a dragon under his skin pushing to escape.

  I look him right in the eye and say, “Why not, Daddy?”

 

  I am frozen. I am terrified. I am confused. I was convinced this was a brilliant birthday. I was sure that the shaking incident was a totally different day. Clearly, I was wrong. I am wrong. I can’t even move my arms to stop this / fast-forward / anything.

  I feel my face.

  It is frozen in horror.

  It knows what comes next.

 

  Vernon grabs my shoulders. His thumbs dig into my clavicles, and his hands squeeze my upper arms tightly. He begins to shake me, and I don’t look scared. But as time advances, his shaking is more wild and his face curls into itself as if he’s experiencing pain.

  “I am Vernon!” he says. “You will call me Vernon!”

  The shaking throws me off-balance, you can see me struggling to stand up, losing my footing, but then getting it back. Once my head starts to wobble front to back, we become a physics project. He is expending energy and I am both absorbing it and returning it.

  In the footage, my neck looks as if it might snap at any second.

  “Vernon!”

  Marta quickly picks me up and holds me.

  Vernon leans back in his chair and stares into the fire. Marta checks my eyes and my neck—running her hand around it and pressing just a little as if she’s searching for a sore spot—and the minute she makes eye contact with me, I start wailing.

  With that, Vernon gets up and walks toward the study.

  Mother and Henry arrive through the patio door a minute later. During that minute, Marta holds me so tightly and I sob and sob and sob.

  Vernon doesn’t come back to watch me open presents.

  I get a few cool outfits, some books, a few albums, and the xylophone and the little guitar. The guitar case has a purple fuzzy interior. I open it and try to fit myself into it while Mother tunes the guitar and Marta bounces Henry on her knee.

  When Vernon does come back in, Marta takes me and Henry out of the room.

  Mother says, “What did you do to Jane?”

  “I didn’t do anything to Jane.”

  “Marta said you were shaking Jane.”

  “I didn’t lay a finger on her.”

  “I think you’re lying,” Mother says.

  Vernon puts his whole body into the slap. It makes a cracking sound. Mother takes the hit and walks out of the room. Vernon sits back down in his chair and stares back into the fire. Waits about four minutes and then leaves again.

  If you keep the footage playing, you can hear him five minutes later in the foyer.

  “You’ll hear from my lawyer!”

  Door slams.

 

  If you keep the footage playing, you can hear him two hours after that, coming back in the same door he left. No one called his lawyer.

  He doesn’t have a lawyer.

  Backup

  I think I just traumatized myself by watching that home movie.

  I thought it was a safe memory.

  I thought my memories were safe.

  I check the transfer to my new cloud; I make sure all the files have been secured. Then close the window on my browser and clear my cache and history.

  I find Henry on the stairs, listening to Vernon pleading with Mother about how he’ll change and how he’s sorry—same as the “Vernon’s Pie Crust Apologies” mixtape. He even adds a line about never with a closed fist! as if he knows I just watched that home movie. Mother stays calm and says something like Vernon, you must go. Today. We can talk about the legal stuff any other day. But say goodbye to the children and then go.

  “It feels like this place is going to explode,” Henry says.

  “I think it’s about to do the opposite of explode,” I say.

  “What’s that even mean?” He looks panicked.

  “I’ve been practicing breathing exercises,” I say. “I breathe in through my nose really deep and then I exhale super slowly. Look.”

  I show him how I exhale through a tiny space in my lips. “If you do this,” I say, “you can even slow your heart rate. But mostly it helps me with the anxiety.”

  “I can’t sleep. I mean I can, but not much. I’m always tired. Probably the detox, Marta says.”

  “I’m proud of you,” I say.

  “I just want something normal,” he says. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  I hold my arms out for a hug. He accepts. “I’ll explain it one day, I promise,” I say.

  Henry frowns. “He makes me scared to grow up.”

  Exit Stage Right

  “You’re making a huge mistake,” Vernon says.

  He’s dressed in full Victorian, pocket watch and all, and is carrying his suitcases from his bedroom to the door. When he’s ready to leave, Milorad in the car, waiting, he asks Henry and me to come and hug him. Henry does it and says I’ll see you soon in the least I’ll-see-you-soon voice I’ve ever heard. Vernon closes the door gently on his way out. Of course.