Waking up this morning was awkward. Only for me. Gemma has no idea.

  I arrive downstairs to find I successfully passed Vernon’s North & South America exam on Tuesday. There were no trick questions for once. Just a map and fill-in-the-blanks. After Vernon returned my graded test to me, Henry cried over algebra until Vernon let him help Milorad in the garden.

  The only time I like Henry now is when we’re outside. He seems more grounded there, not faking interest in whatever Vernon’s saying. He likes dirt most of all. He seems to find an escape in it. Mother knows this because Mother buys him dirt-related gifts for his birthday every year and it makes Vernon crazy. Which means it makes Henry crazy, too. When he turned thirteen last week, he turned his back to Mother, contained in the corner, and said, “I don’t want to plant any of these bulbs because I know you must have picked them by witchcraft.”

  That’s the new one. Mother is a witch. A witch who finds the most beautiful varieties of flowers in the world and gives them to her dirt-loving son on his birthday. What a demon! Only a fortnight ago, Vernon started wearing a Christian cross around his neck on a gold chain to ward off her magic.

  I go to the kitchen and get a bowl of fresh applesauce and break some pieces of cheese into it—my favorite snack.

  After my test review, where Vernon rolls his eyes at the fact that I misspelled Guyana and French Guiana, I have the day off, so I join Henry in the garden where he’s sitting on the grass, the knees of his Flexion hiking pants already muddy. It’s a warm October and the leaves are only beginning to turn. Henry’s exotic bulbs and tubers are still in the box and half wrapped with Mother’s drawings all over brown parcel paper.

  “Arisaema costatum,” Henry says. “Native to Nepal.”

  I nod. “Where will you put it?”

  “It needs shade, I think. I need to read up,” he says. “Though I may just throw it away.”

  “Why?”

  “Sauromatum venosum,” he says. “Voodoo lilies. She gave me three of them.”

  “Voodoo lilies,” I say. “That sounds exciting.”

  “Only if you’re a witch.” Henry gets up and walks to Milorad. Milorad is presently shoveling aged horseshit onto the rose beds in the southwest section of the rose garden. I follow Henry. I don’t say anything about Mother not being a witch. This is a game and I have to play in order to free her.

  “I saw the new plants!” Milorad says. “Do you know where you want them? I have some good suggestions!”

  “Can we use holy water to water them at first?” Henry asks.

  Milorad laughs.

  I ask, “Since when have you believed in holy water?”

  “Since our mother became a witch,” Henry answers.

  Milorad drops his brow. “Witch?”

  “Yes, Milo,” Henry says. “Mother is a witch now. She is more terrible than we thought.”

  “Oh my,” he says.

  Milorad is playing stupid. I heard Vernon out here with him last week. She’s a witch you know. Curses me every night! I swear if there was a way to lock her up safely I would, but she deserves to at least be in her own home while she loses her mind like this. Thank God for those old tubes. Poor dear. I love her so much.

  “Honestly, I don’t think I want these at all. Do you have a friend who might want them?” Henry asks.

  “Henry. Do not throw away such good plants,” Milorad says. “They were gifts.”

  “From a witch.”

  “Mother is not a witch,” I say.

  Henry looks at me like I’m a traitor. Milorad looks like I’ve just rescued his cat from a house fire.

  I walk back inside.

  Vernon isn’t in the study. Mother is sitting in her capsule, meditating. I walk up to the tube and knock lightly on it. She looks up and smiles.

  I say, “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

  She says something but I can’t hear it. I try to read her lips.

  She points to her ear. Listen. To. Then two words I can’t figure out.

  She says it again.

  “ ‘Listen to Safe House’?” I say.

  She nods.

  “Who are you talking to?” Vernon says, arriving from the kitchen. “Ah!” he says. “I knew this would happen.”

  “I hate her,” I say, pointing. I look right into her eyes. “Witch.”

  Vernon looks impressed.

  I turn to him. “I don’t like doing my schoolwork while she watches anymore, Vernon.”

  “Of course, Jane.”

  “And I want to play games later. All of us. For Henry.”

  “Oh, Jane! I’m so glad,” Vernon says. “Games always help him out of his slumps and I fear he’s in one now. So soon after his birthday!”

  “Make sure Mother is there. I think it will help if she’s there.”

  “Of course,” Vernon says.

  “We shall play Ticket to Ride!” I say. “The American version. I know how much Henry loves it.”

  “Of course,” Vernon says.

  “And invite a suitor!” I say. “I’m feeling pretty today.”

  “Of course,” Vernon says.

  I look back to Mother. She is standing in her capsule and doing Tai Chi. When she reaches up to gather Heaven, her belly pops out from under her shirt. It is the palest white and her hip bones pop out and I can see the faint stretch marks from her pregnancies. When she reaches down to gather earth, I can see the top of a tattoo on her right hip—a rendering of Anne Bonny, the notorious pirate, but instead of a musket, she’s holding a carton of milk.

  “I love family game nights!” I say. “Will Marta make us mashed potatoes for supper? I’d love that so much. And maybe another pork loin? It’s applesauce week!”

  “Of course,” Vernon says. “Jane, what’s got into you? You’re positively glowing.”

  “I think we should be allowed to go to the garden more often, Vernon. I think it’s good to talk to Milorad and walk in the sun. Especially this time of year.”

  “I see.”

  “Go talk to Marta!” I say. “Best she knows now what she’s cooking tonight.”

  Vernon leaves the room, but I know he’s lurking by the door.

  I turn to Mother in the corner, doing Tai Chi—limited to the diameter of the capsule, she is rocking slightly from her toes to her heels, raising and lowering her forearms. Her eyes are closed and we ignore each other.

  I go to the display cases in the study and find the vinyl record of Safe House and take it to my room. I’ve listened to the album before, a few times. I read all the words on the record sleeve, but that was back when it was released. Quite a year, 2018. It was the year of Safe House, its matching world tour, and The Christmas That Changed Everything, which was soon followed by The Great Ignoring—neither of which can I bring myself to think about, let alone look at in the home movies.

  As I climb the stairs, wondering how the lyrics on Safe House might have changed since I was ten, I hear the System fan switch on and imagine Mother being pushed and pulled all over the house, trying to find a place where she isn’t a witch.

  Ticket to Ride

  Four hours later, we are seated around the large dining table. My suitor’s name is Peyton; he’s covered in pimples and can’t seem to speak in coherent sentences. He only tells us he plays football and that he has a game tomorrow night.

  I make WTF eyes at Vernon.

  Vernon says, “You gave me such short notice, Jane.”

  Gemma came to help me get dressed and ready. She brushed my hair, powdered my nose, and ironed the sleeveless hoodie sweater I’m wearing. It’s argyle. Dinner is delicious and Vernon declares Marta the best chef in Lancaster County. After dinner, Finch arrives with a six-pack of beer.

  “Vernon, who is this?” she asks of Peyton.

  “Jane’s suitor,” Vernon answers, while Finch looks Peyton up and down.

  “Not good enough,” Finch answers, and cracks open a beer.

  Peyton leaves then, claiming this “isn’t what he signed up for” and doesn’t even thank us for dinner or attempt to kiss me goodbye.

  “I’m going to change out of this sweater. It’s too hot in here!” I say. Finch says something to Vernon and he takes a beer from her six-pack and cracks it open.

  Gemma follows me upstairs, and when we get into my room, I want to kiss her but everything is wrong with that. The power dynamic is wrong. The fact that she works for my family is wrong. The fact that she’s my friend is wrong. Also, she’s probably not gay and probably not in love with me and this is probably just some dumb crush that I will outgrow. Also, I’ve never kissed anyone before in my life. By the time I’ve thought all of that, Gemma has started to undress me, and as she has me step into a pair of wide-bottomed yoga leggings, I slip into a light fleece hoodie sweatshirt.

  “Look at your hair!” she says.

  I look in the mirror and the static has it standing out at all angles, the way it did when I touched the cool silver ball at the Franklin Institute science museum in Philadelphia.

  “I wish you could stay,” I say. We calm my hair down and I sit and put on a pair of socks. “Mother will be out of the tubes and we get to see her before she leaves for tour.”

  “Board games were never my thing,” Gemma says, and we walk back downstairs and she heads to the front door.

  A minute later, Mother arrives through the kitchen swing door. She has changed out of her capsule clothing and has a light sweater on. The sweater has holes in it and is black-and-gray-striped. She sports well-worn leather pants.

  “Leather?” Finch says.

  Vernon laughs. He adjusts his bright green polo shirt and runs his hand through his thinning hair. “Always both over- and underdressed for every occasion. That’s our girl.”

  Mother smiles shyly and sits down.

  She knows what’s about to happen.

  This is a set piece.

  Family Game Night

  In this room there are two games going at once. One, the board game in the middle of the table. Tonight’s is Ticket to Ride—a game about train routes around the world, in this case, America. It is Henry’s favorite game.

  The other doesn’t have a title or a board or a box or a set of instructions.

  The other is a rodeo. A free-for-all. A death match.

  “I get black!” Henry says. I’ve already put all the black trains at his place setting because everyone knows Henry gets black.

  “Green,” Vernon says.

  “Blue,” Finch says.

  “And I get yellow,” I say.

  Mother gets red by default.

  Mother is used to getting whatever she gets by default. There’s a reason she writes the most disemboweling lyrics in punk rock.

  Between the Mina Witch Trials of early afternoon and now, I spent most of my time in my room on the floor with my record player. I listened to Safe House three times (in headphones, of course), reading the lyrics through each song. It’s quite a puzzle. The first song is “To the Girls in the Bathroom.” It’s about high school girls putting on makeup in the bathroom and how they help each other. The refrain is haunting. Remember this, you high school girls, remember who you are right here. They will try to make you kill each other in another fucking year. Make a world unto yourself inside your gorgeous little head. And in that world, you can become a thing more suitable than dead.

  I look at Mother, who is arranging her tiny red plastic trains, and I understand the world inside her head. I wonder if she and Marta used to put on their makeup in the bathroom when they were in high school.

  The game begins. We get our cards with the routes we have to complete on them. My cards are bullshit. I don’t know how many crappy train routes a person can get in this game, but I am sure I’ve gotten the max. The rounds go by fast—people start to put down trains, completing the routes.

  “I’d like two cards from the pile, please,” Henry says, and Vernon hands him two cards from the pile.

  Finch lays down three matched cards and puts three trains on the route from Pittsburgh to Chicago. She takes the last available route and blocks the only way I can complete my game route.

  “Jane, move my marker,” she says. I do. She’s currently in second place. Vernon is in first even though we’re supposed to be letting Henry win the game.

  It’s Vernon’s turn and he picks two cards from the pile, clearly hoping for a certain color card, and says, “The unknown is exciting!” Then he looks at the cards and says, “Dammit.”

  Mother says, “The unknown is still exciting, though, right?”

  Finch meows like a cat, then, “Ts-ts-tssss.” Hisses from the back of her throat.

  Mother looks at her sister. Then at Vernon. They both look down at their cards. Mother is expressionless and emotionless. “Right, Vernon?” she says. “You said it on our wedding day, remember?”

  “Of course,” Vernon says. He feigns annoyance at Finch’s hissing.

  “Tsss,” Finch hisses again and it knocks me into two years ago, on my birthday.

  Home Movie—03.02.2022

  We’re playing Trivial Pursuit, the 1980s version. I am turning fourteen in seventeen minutes.

 

  I am meticulous about my time of birth. I am a Capricorn moon, which means I’m responsible, pragmatic, and I set goals. At an-hour-to-fourteen that year, I’d set a goal, especially, to make Vernon proud by doing what he had trained me to do my whole life and get another reward—maybe more rum, I hoped, because he gave me vodka the week before, shaken, not stirred, and I didn’t like it.

 

  We sit around the table—me, Henry, Vernon, Finch, and Mother—and we answer trivia questions. Mother only needs one more segment to win.

  She lands on the correct square and I ask her a question from the category That’s Life.

  “How many pounds of chemical additive does an average American consume yearly: three, six, or nine?”

  Mother answers quickly, “Nine.”

  I frown. “How did you know that?”

  “I didn’t,” she says. “I guessed the most shocking answer. Americans are always the most shocking. Especially in the eighties.”

  Aunt Finch does it then. “Meoooow.”

  Vernon chuckles through his nose and looks down at the table.

  Henry says, “Meoooow.”

  “Tss-tss,” Finch adds.

  Mother takes a deep breath and looks uncomfortable.

  “Would you like to try for the middle spot to win?” I ask.

  Mother rolls the die, gets a six, and lands in the middle. Vernon, Finch, Henry, and I discuss how to make sure she loses the game—it’s my near-birthday, after all—and decide that she’s worst at sports questions. She keeps looking down at her hands, which are folded delicately on the table.

  “What was the only U.S. pro team to end a ninety-eight-year championship drought in the 1980s?” I ask.

  Without looking up or even taking a breath, Mother says, “The Philadelphia Phillies. I was there for that.”

  I turn to her, mere moments before I turn fourteen years old. “Tss-tss-tsss!”

  Finch meows.

  Henry hisses, too.

  Vernon chuckles under his breath and checks his pocket watch. “Only five minutes now until the exact time of your birth,” he says. “I remember it well. What a beautiful night.”

 

  I remember the way he said this. It was as if Mother hadn’t even been there for my birth—as if he had done all the work.

 

  Mother gets up and turns toward the tube in the corner of the study. Her eyes long for it. I throw a game piece at her. It hits her in the back of her leg. Henry throws his, then, and it hits her on the elbow and his colored pie slices fly out. Finch picks up the box of cards and lunges forward as she throws it. It hits Mother in the back and she shudders. I throw another game piece and another. Henry throws tiny triangular pieces at her in a handful. I pick up the second box of cards and aim for her head.

  The room comes alive with hissing. Henry, Aunt Finch, and me. Mother freezes in what looks to be some kind of psychological paralyzation.

  Ts-ts-tsss-tsss! Tsss-tss-tsssss-ts!

  Vernon gets up and takes Mother by the arm and shows her to her chair inside the capsule. He closes her in, puts the System remote control into his pocket, and replaces the attachment so there is one-way communication only. She can hear us. We can’t hear her. We work to pick up all the things we threw. Henry stands by the tube, and yells, “I hate you!” I stand behind him with my hands on his shoulders, and say, “I wish you weren’t my mother!” Vernon gets himself a glass of wine. Finch gives Mother the finger and hisses, drawing her upper lip up to bare her bucked, uneven teeth. With each hiss, she enunciates her middle fingers.

  With my hands still on Henry’s shoulders, we stare into the tube where Mother sits on her wooden dining chair. She dressed up for my birthday—a cool plaid skirt and her famous twenty-eyelet orange Doc Martens. She looks down, now, at her hands. Her hair hides her face so I can’t see if she’s crying yet.

  Henry starts beating on the plastic tubing, fist after fist.

  “Everyone hates you, see?” I say. She looks at me and I see a single tear inching down her cheek.

  And then it’s 12:12 a.m. and we all gather by the fire in the adjacent sitting room to celebrate how great the world is to have me in it. Vernon produces a hand-blown glass flute filled with champagne. I drink it fast, and he refills it.

 

  It was quite a memorable day.

  Ticket to Ride / Present Day

  Aunt Finch stops hissing and opens another beer using the bottom of her T-shirt to protect her palm. She hands it to Vernon. She opens one for herself and takes a gulp.