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I sat on the opposite end of the couch from Dorothy. My mother sat in a chair across from us. The African mask on the wall behind her head bared its yellow teeth.

Not only did my mother look stark raving mad, but she looked smug in her madness. Like she was pleased to take this mental vacation. She glared at me from across the room, smoking deeply, exhaling with purpose.

“You don’t seem normal,” I said.

She cocked her head in an arrogant fashion. “And have I ever seemed normal to you? Have I ever been the mother you wanted?”

It seemed important not to get her riled up. “You’ve been a good mother,” I lied. “I’m just worried about you. You look slightly manic.”

Dorothy jumped down my throat. “You are so fucking judgmental. It’s people like you that are the reason your mother has to fight so hard. I mean, you might not mean it, I don’t think you do it on purpose, but you’re oppressive.” She turned the fifty-dollar bill against the flame, igniting the edge.

My mother continued to stare at me, studying me it seemed.

Dorothy was like a little girl with her marbles, focused entirely on the candle’s flame, the burning bill and her long red fingernails. Her nails were a sharp contrast to my mother’s, which were always chewed down to nubs.

After twenty minutes, Hope arrived. She came into the room, winded. “Hi,” she said, cautiously, easing her rainbow bag to the floor. She set her PBS bag on a chair. “What’s up?”

“Well, what an unexpected surprise. Welcome, Hope,” my mother said, although she quickly glared at me.

Hope came and sat on the sofa next to me. Because of all her years working for her dad, Hope’s manner was smooth, calm and professional. She was like a paramedic for the psychologically collapsed.

“I just came by to see how you’re doing, Deirdre,” Hope said. Her voice was friendly, tinged with concern.

“I’m doing fine, thank you very much,” my mother said. Her voice dripped with condescension. She picked a small basket up off the table next to her chair. “Do you know what is in this basket, Hope?”

Hope leaned forward, smiling. “No, Deirdre. What?”

“Dorothy,” my mother said, “would you come over and get this basket, then hand it to Hope?”

Dorothy smirked. “Sure.” She got up, took the small basket from my mother and then handed it to Hope.

Hope opened the basket and screamed, recoiling. She slammed the basket on the coffee table. “Oh my God, what are those?”

My mother roared with laughter and Dorothy sat on the floor next to her, stroking her leg. “Those are dried locust husks. My friend Sonja sent them to me from Texas. You don’t like them?”

Hope made a face. “They’re disgusting. They give me the creeps.”

My mother was fond of such things. She had a cow skull hanging in her bedroom and a rattlesnake skin stretched across the wall above the bookshelf in the dining room. She had bowls of seashells and driftwood and jars filled with bits of fur and feathers. She used many of these things in her writing workshops. “What memory does the bone bring?” she might direct. Or, “Hold the hair between your fingers and describe the sensation.”

Hope leaned forward to peer again into the basket. “I wouldn’t want something like that around the house, they look like roaches.”

“Yes, they certainly do,” my mother agreed with controlled poise.

Hope sat back on the sofa and wore a pleasant expression while Dorothy stayed by my mother’s side on the floor, like a royal subject. My mother stared directly ahead at me.

I didn’t like her eyes at all. They were fierce. I didn’t like that they were trained on me.

Hope said, “Deirdre, are you feeling okay?”

My mother’s head snapped toward Hope. “Of course. How are you, Hope?”

I sat there thinking about all the times I had seen this very show before. For years, since I was nine or ten, my mother had gone mad in the fall. I would start to see that look in her eyes, smell that odd aroma wafting off her skin. And I would know. I would always know before anyone else. I had been born with some kind