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“My name is Katherine! Kat! Everyone call me Kat,” I ordered. “What are you doing here?” I asked my mother.

“What a long trip,” she said, and picked up one of the bags. “Hek—Kat, can you get the rest?” She started to edge past me, Oliver, Mrs. McGlothen, Vera, Gramps, and the neighbor, Ann. “Wow, so many people! I didn’t know that you had a lot of roommates.”

“I don’t. Who is this person?” I asked, staring at the vaper.

“Maël, of course!”

He smiled at me and started to edge in, too.

“Hold on there,” Oliver told him and then asked me, “Do you want to let him in?”

“I guess so. I think he’s her boyfriend,” I said. The group moved into the living room, Maël included, and I stared at all the bags left in the hallway. I had always traveled light but my mom had not, not ever. And usually, I had been stuck helping her carry everything, which had made it doubly important for me to have next to nothing myself. I grabbed some of her belongings and decided that it was enough for now. I would trust that my neighbors weren’t thieves and I would come back for the rest later—I trusted the crowd inside less and didn’t want to leave them alone.

“What led you to name her that?” I heard Mrs. McGlothen ask as I let the bags drop. Whatever my mother had brought back from Mexico, it wasn’t tissue paper because everything weighed the same as a pile of rocks. She repeated it with the same accent. “Hekate.”

“I gave her a name full of magic, energy, and thunder. She’s—”

“She’s not me,” I said to everyone. “I changed it, so legally I’m Katherine now. Katherine,” I repeated, just as loudly and clearly. “Call me Kat.”

My mom’s boyfriend pretended to hiss and claw the air.

“Kat with a K,” I informed him.

“Oh, this atmosphere is so oppressive. There isn’t the merest hint of whimsy and wonder!” My mom swirled her hands over her head, then looked down at Vera’s glass. “What are you all drinking?” she asked.

Vera put her own hand over the top of her wine. “Who are you?”

“This is my mother, Journey,” I told them. “Can you come with me for a minute, Mom? Just for a second?” I requested. But then the timer for the oven went off again.

“I can put the food on the table,” Oliver suggested. “Gramps, why don’t you give me a hand? And Ann, what about…” He looked at his neighbor, who was refilling her glass out of the bottle that she must have fetched from the kitchen herself. “That’s all right. You look comfortable.”

He and Gramps left and I pulled my mom into my bedroom. “What is all this?” she asked, looking at the furniture pieces on the ground.

“I didn’t have time to get my bed together.” Even with the new tools that I’d bought, it had been very difficult. “Mom, I thought that you were in Mexico. What are you doing in Detroit with that guy?”

It was a mistake to bring up Maël, because she started to go into rhapsodies about him and how amazing he was.

“And young,” I pointed out, before trying to bring us back to the pertinent issue. “What happened to your paper flower business? And the stray dogs?”

It took several more questions before she could admit that there were more dogs than she could have handled and that the paper flowers hadn’t been as popular as she’d imagined they would be. “No one cared that we used only organic tissue and wire to create them, and that each was packaged with a special verbal blessing from me,” she recounted sadly.

“Kat?” Oliver called and knocked on the door. “The other guests are all at the table.”

“Thank you,” I answered. “We’ll figure this out after we eat,” I told my mom. I had made a lot of food, and there would definitely be enough for two more people if I didn’t have anything myself. It was probably getting cold because of the heating problem in my apartment (the problem of not having enough of it) so I quickly guided her toward the dining nook.

The guests had already arranged themselves in their chairs, scooting to preferred places and giving each other as wide of berths as the small space allowed. Gramps and Oliver were together, Vera and Mrs. McGlothen had paired off, Ann the neighbor had settled in with the wine bottle, and Maël sat in the corner.

“You can come to the table,” I told him, but my mom shook her head.

“He’s a free spirt. Let him live on his own terms, Kat.” She went and sat on his lap.

I took the chair next to Oliver, who nodded at me. “This looks great,” he said.

I hoped it would be. It had taken me three trips to three different stores and hours of preparation to get this food on the table, but I had gotten it done all by myself, just like the owl in the book. I looked at my mom, whispering into her boyfriend’s ear, and Ann the neighbor, who was tapping the bottom of the wine bottle to chase the final few drops.

“Let’s eat,” Oliver recommended.

The dinner went on in silence, but not just from me. I did try to talk and so did he, but no one else was interested. Vera sat with her head down, obviously miserable. Mrs. McGlothen glared at Gramps, who glared back. My mom eventually joined us and she did have a few things to say about their long trip here from Mexico. Maël also came to the table and seemed to enjoy the food a lot, but still didn’t speak. Ann the neighbor fell asleep before dessert.