“They laugh at you, you know!” That’s what Aunt Finch said to Mother many times—her outside the tube and Mother inside, eyes closed, blocking Finch out. “No matter how much success you get, you’re still just a weirdo and no one takes you seriously!” Mother would put her hands over her ears, and I could see her throat tensing with a loud hum. Sometimes, she would take her flannel shirt or sweater and wrap it up over her head so she couldn’t see Finch, and Finch couldn’t see her.

  Estrangement is all kinds of complicated when one is confined in a tube and one’s sister is outside the tube, fucking one’s husband. It really is a scandal.

  I can’t judge, though. From the age of seven, through the tween years when the pandemic locked us all in this wood-paneled Victorian cage, to the age of found-the-home-movies sixteen, I also behaved in ways for which I cannot ever forgive myself.

  I was scum. Duplicitous. Disloyal. I can’t bear it.

  There is a memory I have from inside my bedroom, where there are no cameras. Six years ago—two months before The Christmas That Changed Everything. Mother was there, in the flesh, on a break from a world tour for Henry’s birthday, and I was ten. She held a stack of freshly laundered sheets still warm from the dryer.

  “You’re doing so well on your math work,” she said to me.

  “Not like you even care,” I said.

  “I care very much, Jane.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Mother cocked her head at me in the way she does. Vernon says it’s to make us feel bad.

  “Stop doing that!” I said. “You control us with how you look at us!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Come on. Let’s make the bed. I was hoping we could talk like a mother and daughter do. I started with something silly like math. Really, I should ask you if you have anything to share. I miss you. I miss reading to you. What are you reading now?”

  I am so ashamed to tell you, reader, what I did next.

  “What do you care?” I yelled. “You go all over the world to play music and make millions of dollars that you don’t share with us,” I said. “And your music is stupid anyway. Finch says you just string random words together.”

  “I’m sure Finch is right,” Mother said.

  I grabbed the sheets from her hands and took them to my en suite bathroom. I shoved them in the toilet bowl. I said, “Mother, go fetch my sheets and wash them. I can’t believe you wanted me to put such filthy things on my bed! No wonder you don’t have a good family life. You just can’t seem to do anything right.”

  I am so ashamed. I have been a dour, piece-of-shit daughter—though we had incentive to practice. Each time Henry or I did something evil to Mother, we were rewarded.

  Three weeks later, on Christmas morning 2018, Mother was there, exhausted from a yearlong tour, and she wore a pair of men’s checked pajama pants—red and navy blue—and a T-shirt that read All I Want for Christmas Is Reproductive Rights.

  Finch, who stayed in the adjoining guest room next to Vernon’s while Mother slept two stories down in the basement, said to her, “How dare you wear such a thing to Christmas!”

  Mother didn’t answer.

  Finch said, “If Jesus was aborted, we wouldn’t even be having Christmas!”

  Mother didn’t answer. None of us were religious. I started to fake-cry for my reward.

  Vernon scooped me into his arms then, and said, “I’m sorry, Jane.”

  Mother hung her head. “I’ll change my shirt, Jane. I apologize.” She went to change and came back with a different shirt on. It read All I Want for Christmas Is the End of For-Profit Prisons.

  Finch muttered under her breath and rolled her eyes. Mother sat down on the floor next to the tree.

  Vernon opened his gift from Mother then, between sips of his bitter black coffee. It was money. Cash money. Bills from every country she’d been in that year while on her world tour for the album Safe House. Vernon looked at the roll of cash and back to Mother.

  “What good will this do me?” he asked.

  Mother looked hurt.

  Vernon walked to her and squatted an inch from her face. He screamed. “I stay home with your children and you bring me money I can’t even use?”

  Mother started to cry and her body shook.

  Henry started to laugh—he was seven years old. He said, “Look at Mother crying!”

  I took him to the kitchen. I could hear from there, Mother’s explanation.

  “Finch told me that this is what you wanted—bills from all the places I’d been,” she said. “I thought you’d be thrilled.”

  I peeked through the swinging door. Finch sat on the couch smirking, arms crossed, legs crossed, spring-loaded, and shaking her head. There was quite a bit of yelling after that and Marta distracted us with Christmas dinner chores and loud holiday music—a tradition during Vernon’s annual Christmas benders, though this one was louder.

  Later that night, while Mother was locked securely in the System, Vernon and Finch gave Henry and me an endless mound of Marta’s Christmas cookies, and while Henry got plain eggnog, I got something special. My very first taste of rum! At ten years old. How naughty! How fabulously wicked!

  Exams at Noon

  By the time Vernon arrives in the study, it’s past noon. Henry is out with Milorad and covered in dirt. I am locked in my en suite bathroom, under my favorite fleece blanket, and on my quest for the truth. I need to understand why Mother is willingly locked up when she hasn’t done anything wrong.

  “Jane!”

  I hide the iPad in the hollow behind the sink pedestal and rush downstairs. I feign being out of breath.

  He ignores me. “Sit. It’s exam time!” He puts a packet of test papers in front of me. “You have one hour.”

  I open the packet while he goes to the kitchen for coffee.

  The test is for seventh graders. It says so in the footer of the front page, which also has the name of the website Vernon uses for his worksheets. (He keeps his computer setup locked in his room lest Henry or I sneak online and find out anything about the real world.)

  I fill in the Caribbean Islands first, just to spite myself and Vernon. The rest is easy. It’s been easy since the sixth grade when I first took this exam.

  I decide, two pages in, to contact the school district. This is serious. This is my future. Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize…

  I will say Dear School District, Vernon Cook is holding me and my brother hostage in our house at 1111 Spruce Street. I am sixteen, and today I took the same test on North American geography as I did in elementary school. Please do whatever you can to save us.

  Sadly, no one will be sent to save us because this letter is in my imagination. Instead, Vernon arranges another suitor. My twentieth, I believe.

  Suitor #20: Jed from the Orchestra

  When Vernon took me shopping at the family department store in Philadelphia on my sixteenth birthday in March, he made sure to stop by the lingerie section and told the woman working there to “set me up with whatever she needs.” This meant lacy panties and bras, all of which felt too old for me but I went along with it.

  That’s what having suitors is all about, Vernon told me. Going along with it.

  His name is Jed and he plays the French horn in the youth symphony, which Vernon isn’t too pleased to learn as we eat dinner. In fact, he rejects the boy outright and doesn’t stay for dessert. It gives Jed and me some time alone to talk.

  “Your dad really dresses up for this stuff,” he says.

  “He lies to God,” I say, quite drunk from dinner wine. “Pocket watch and all.”

  He pulls out a flask from his sport coat and offers with his eyebrows. I nod and he takes a swig and hands it to me. I take a long swig, looking directly into the security camera.

  He looks around the dining room. “Are those gold records?”

  “Yes.”

  As my head looks over my shoulder at Mother’s gold records, he launches himself into my lap right there at the dining table, tongue flailing as if I’m not still eating Marta’s famous peach cobbler.

  I suddenly feel ill—as if I am about to faint. I open my mouth to speak, and all that comes out is garbled. Jed continues to straddle me in my chair and I push it away from the table and we begin to fall backward quickly. When the chair hits the floor, my head is saved by his arm, which makes an interesting sound as we land. Next thing I remember is Marta and me in my bedroom, her telling Henry he was a good brother, and the darkness of sleep.

  APPLESAUCE DAY

  Today is Wednesday, October 16, 2024

  I have been spoiled my entire life with the foods Marta and Milorad make for our family. For example, I have never tried applesauce that comes from a jar. I have never eaten store-bought jam. And I have never placed in my mouth a vegetable that was not homegrown.

  Today is applesauce day and don’t even think of trying to get into the kitchen until it’s done or else Marta will tell you right off.

  Vernon learns the hard way annually.

  I can hear it from the patio where I’m lying on a bench dealing with a disquieting wine-and-roofie hangover.

  “Get your hand off of that!” Marta yells.

  “I just want coffee!”

  “No coffee today,” she says.

  Vernon says, “I can just make instant and—”

  “No coffee today!” Marta snaps.

  I can hear the swinging door of the kitchen and then Vernon opens the patio doors.

  “It’s applesauce day,” he says.

  “I’m aware,” I say.

  “Can I sit here with you?”

  “I’m trying to nap in the sun,” I say. My head is pounding.

  “Aren’t you helping?” he asks.

  “Of course. But not until the end. I’m a taster.”

  “I would think that’s Henry’s job now.”

  “Henry is out on a bike ride,” I say. It sounds so normal, doesn’t it?

  “What?” You can hear his balls tense up.

  “See? You’re awake. You don’t need coffee,” I say. Henry isn’t on a bike ride. He’s in the greenhouse.

  “Jesus, Jane.”

  “That should be my stage name,” I say.

  I sit up and he sits down where my feet were a minute ago. He looks at me. He starts to talk. I hear nothing over my inner band-name monologue.

  Jesus Jane’s Taste Test. Taste Test featuring Jesus Jane. Jesus Jane and the Hangovers. Bagged Lunch. Jesus Jane and Bagged Lunch. Bike Ride feat. Jesus Jane. Jesus Jane and the Bike Rides. Jesus Jane and the Bike Riders.

  “Don’t you think?” Vernon asks.

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re always saying we should see more art.”

  “I didn’t hear you. Sorry. What are we talking about?” I ask.

  “Your art tutor.”

  “Oh.”

  “She wants to take you to a museum first thing,” he says. “I don’t think it’s wise.”

  I didn’t think he was really going to get me an art tutor. I startle myself and hug him with gleeful arms. “Are you serious? Which museum?”

  “I can’t recall.”

  “Do you remember the Rodin? It was so beautiful. The longer I stared at the bronzes, the more detail I could see. Flawless!”

  “Calm down.”

  “I shan’t! It’s too good of a dream! A museum! A real museum!”

  “You sound like you’ve never been anywhere,” he says.

  “I’ve been locked up since I was newly twelve. Surely you can’t even imagine what that’s like. It’s been dreadful. I’d walk along a highway, even. Anywhere different.”

  “Oh, shut up, Jane. Really.” Vernon stands up and I stand up with him. I do enjoy my misplaced Victorian-teen-girl act. It’s what he expects.

  “I’ll shut up if you let me see a museum with—” I pause. “What’s her name?”

  “Susan,” he says.

  “Susan,” I say. I’ll admit I was hoping for something that sounded a bit more exciting. Jesus Jane and the Susans. “When do I get to meet her?”

  Vernon says, “I don’t have her nailed down yet. I’ll put in my order now.”

  Marta pokes her head out of the kitchen. “Jane, can you give me a hand?”

  I nod at Marta but say this to Vernon. “You’re ordering her? Is she a pizza?”

  Vernon closes his eyes as if I’m too much to suffer. I feel for him—worn down by a sixteen-year-old girl with a hangover.

  By the time I’m inside the kitchen Marta has one eyebrow raised and whispers, “You smell like a pirate. You’re lucky he didn’t—”

  “Arrrrr,” I say. “Where’s Mother?”

  She throws me a clean dish towel soaked in cold water, and says, “Rehearsing at the studio. Slap that on your face.”

  I do.

  When I open my eyes, she’s handing me a cup of black coffee and an Altoids mint.

  “Lean back.”

  I do.

  She expertly drops saline onto my parched eyeballs.

  This is not our first rodeo.

  * * *

  —

  Milorad arrives in the kitchen via the back door. “I am here to help!”

  Marta points to three huge pots on the stovetop. Each one has steam billowing from it—she’s boiling water. On the stainless steel island, she has two big cutting boards and two chef’s knives. Between them is a huge bowl of washed apples.

  Gemma walks in from the direction of the study. “Sorry I’m late!”

  She walks directly to the bowl of apples and starts chopping them into quarters and placing them in an empty bowl to her left.

  “Hi!” I say to Gemma. I can’t think of anything else.

  “Hi!” she says back.

  Marta places her hands on both of my shoulders and moves me into the comfy chair in the corner of the kitchen. She hands me two Tylenol. She says, “Don’t get in the way.”

  For two hours, I watch as they chop, boil, and grind. I check to see where Vernon is a few times, but Marta tells me I can’t go outside. I say, “But he could be asleep in the sun again.”

  Milorad answers me. “He is with your mother’s sister. They are in the orchard, cleaning up.”

  “That’s a lie,” I say. Because I’ve never known either Finch or Vernon to clean up anything.

  The adults in the room all look at me.

  I fake figuring it out, whatever “it” is. Because if it’s something weird and sexual that involves an orchard, I don’t want to know.

  Ten minutes later, it becomes clear it was not sexual at all.

  Vernon is screaming. I mean screaming—as he storms toward the house.

  “If it’s so bloody easy, then you do it!” he snaps. “You do it!”

  Marta whispers something in Milorad’s ear. He grunts in agreement. Gemma looks up at me and gives a feeble smile. I love applesauce day. Seeing our people in one place, working together, makes me feel like I’m part of a family.

  OUR PEOPLE

  It’s an icebreaker!

  Our people. That’s how we say it.

  Gemma.

  Milorad.

  Marta.

  They are our people.

  Let’s Get to Know Marta!

  Marta has cooked delicious food (and made jams, preserves, powders, elixirs, wines, ciders, beers, truly—Marta has a recipe for anything you ever wanted) in this house since 2001, and has been cooking for Mina since she was fourteen years old! Her favorite animal is the starfish. ASK MARTA ABOUT WHY SHE LOVES STARFISH SOMETIME. She grew up about a mile from here and was Mother’s best friend since they were in primary school. Marta’s favorite color “depends on what you’re talking about.” She says: brown for sweaters and red for pajamas, but “really ugly and unsettling colors for sports cars.” Marta lives in the original servant’s quarters, a spacious two-bedroom apartment with windows overlooking the large lawn to the west of the rose garden, which is only accessible from the back stairs in the kitchen.

  Let’s Get to Know Milorad!

  Milorad is a mysterious gardener and general valet with a cool accent. He came to America from Serbia in 1992—soon after the Yugoslav Wars started. He landed first in Chicago and lived there with his cousin. No one knows why he came to Pennsylvania. I think it’s because he had a raucous love affair. ASK MILORAD WHY HE CAME TO PENNSYLVANIA SOMETIME. He started working for our family in 2006, the year Mother and Vernon went to Amsterdam to launch Mother’s second studio album, It Takes Two. Milorad lives in the pool house and no one seems to mind. His favorite color is “the green of spring grass” and his favorite animal, aside from his pet rat, Brutus, is the red-tailed hawk.

  Let’s Get to Know Gemma!

  Gemma is seventeen years old, which is not too old for me to be in love with her. She has been my lady’s maid since I was eight, which is weird because she was only nine, but she has always been far more mature than me. She says, “I’m your friend, only I help you do things. That’s all.” Her favorite color is blue. Her favorite animal, she says, is me, but I’ve heard her talking to Marta about how she keeps chickens on her family’s farm and how much she loves the blue ones. ASK GEMMA WHY SHE LOVES HER BLUE CHICKENS SO MUCH SOMETIME. Of our three people, Gemma is the only one who doesn’t live on the property. She tells me she walks here, but she never arrives wet when it’s raining.

  LESSON TWO: HOW I CAME TO KNOW MY MOTHER IS A WITCH

  Today is Thursday, October 17, 2024

  Applesauce Day always means pork for dinner. Marta serves the sauce warm—that was dinner last night. Then I went to bed stuffed and Gemma slept over, so I couldn’t look at any home movies.