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Mrs. McGlothen and Oliver Marchand had been right: thanks to its solid construction, the Milaflores Building was almost soundproof. As I’d scurried around the hallways and listened at doors, I had hardly heard anything at all. Once, I had caught someone singing a beautiful aria from an opera, but that had been very faint. Another time, I had heard someone swearing, but that was because he had opened the door and by mistake, he’d dropped some of the recycling that he’d been carrying, so that plastic bottles spilled across the hall. He had almost caught me spying and I’d had to run back to the stairwell.

All in all, my investigations were not proceeding well. All in all, I had learned practically nothing from my neighbors (except for some stuff about rap in the previous century) and I had no information about the song that I was interested in, the one that was coming out of my faucets. I didn’t know anyone here in Detroit, so that meant I had no one to invite over to listen to the shower and no one to contact to ask for their opinion of my mental state. My lack of relationships wasn’t limited to this city, either. I didn’t have anyone to contact anywhere…

Well. There was one person, and I pulled out my phone when I got back upstairs to my desk. I had to sit down in order to do this, because I knew it would be a long call.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hekate!” she said happily.

“No, I’m not. Remember? I changed it to Katherine, but you can still call me Kat.”

I heard her sigh. “I know. You’ve repudiated your namesake. Where are you?”

“I’m in Detroit. I’ll let you know if I’m going to move somewhere else,” I said. “What about you? Where are you right now?”

She had moved again herself, but she hadn’t remembered to tell me about it. “I’m in Arkansas!” she informed me. “It’s lovely.”

She was involved in a forestry project that she was sure was going to go so well. “Because you know how much the world needs more trees, Kat.”

“Yes,” I said slowly. I wasn’t ready to put my seal of approval on her plan until I heard more, but learning about her projects was difficult. It was all about the questions I would pose. They had to be specific enough to peel back the normal-sounding parts and arrive at the kernel of weirdness that was at the heart of everything she did.

It took a while, but I finally arrived there when I asked, “Specifically, what kind of tree are you trying to plant?” And I looked it up and found that it was an invasive species and banned for sale in that state, which was going to cause some problems. I tried to explain that to her but she always had a hard time listening to advance warnings.

And anyway, that wasn’t why I had called. She was trying to tell me about the new friends she had made and how good they were at digging holes, but I interrupted.

“Mom, just one second. I wanted to ask you something.”

“If they could each dig three per minute, imagine how many trees we could—”

“Mom!” I begged. “Please. I have a question about me.”

“You shouldn’t cut your hair,” she answered immediately. “Wear it long and free.”

“Ok, but I do get split ends, so—no, that wasn’t the question.” I tried to backtrack but it did take a moment to return to the actual issue. “I was wondering if you think that I’m, um, different. If I’ve changed.”

“You’ve definitely become more closed off to the natural essence that flows through all of us. All of us,” she stressed. “You need to reopen your heart. It was the boarding school that did it.”

I was already aware of what she thought about my education. “I meant, do you think that I might be the kind of person to have auditory hallucinations?”

“Are you hearing voices? That’s so exciting! It could be manitous, or a kodama, or—”

“Never mind,” I said. “I’m not hearing voices.”

“Oh. I really didn’t think you were the type,” she said. She sounded a little disappointed. “You’ve never seemed open to a more spiritual existence.”

“Not like you wanted for me, no,” I agreed. “You don’t think that I might be mentally ill?”

“We all have our problems,” she answered, “but I’ve never thought you were like my mom’s sister’s wife. Remember Helda?” There were a lot of stories, but I had to break in again.

“Helda died before I was born so I don’t know anything about her. Ok, that was all I needed to ask,” I said.

“Is something wrong?” my mom wondered. But I hesitated before I answered, and it was just enough time for her to start telling me about a secondary idea she’d had for farming aquatic plants and pumpkins. Then I said that I had to go, only because I needed a break.

In the end, I was glad that I’d talked to my mom because it was good to check in and see where she was. She wasn’t great about reaching out since she was so busy with her projects, and she rarely responded to texts. Her voice mailbox was always full so I couldn’t leave a message (not that she would have listened to it). But she often picked up when I called her. Sometimes.

I looked out the window and saw that the rude guy who owned the record shop was closing for the day. He stepped from beneath his tattered awning and gave someone the finger as she rode by on a bike. Then he walked across the street…was he coming here to the Milaflores Building? Why? I wasn’t doing anything else, so I got up and hurried down the stairs, because the elevator was interesting with its two doors but it was so slow. When I arrived in the lobby, the man was waiting for it to descend.

“Is this piece of crap broken again?” he asked me. “If it is, I’ll sue for discrimination against the elderly.”