I learned more about my dad from his Wikipedia page than I ever learned from my mom. Joseph Perry wasn’t a magician with a household name, but he was well respected for his teleportation illusions. Some people speculate that he was on the verge of being one of the greats when he disappeared from center stage and became known for doing small pop-up shows with a mysterious woman—my mom. It perhaps made him more famous because he became elusive. And then he died. I’ve read all kinds of theories that he disappeared because he was running from someone he owed money to or another magician whose trick he stole, and that his death wasn’t random at all. I’ve been down every odd rabbit hole and theory, but all I know for sure is what Mom told me: he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Dad couldn’t actually make himself disappear.

Mom’s death was different. I know what happened to her. I found her. I saw the wounds.

I’m about to let myself dwell on it when the door opens downstairs. Deb’s home. If I’m lucky, Deb will go to bed without checking on me.

I’m never lucky.

She knocks on my bedroom door but doesn’t wait for me to answer. She knows I won’t.

“Ava?” My name in her mouth is always a question that she doesn’t know how to ask and I can’t answer.

She smiles as she slides through the door, still wearing her scrubs and practical white sneakers. Her brown hair is piled back with a clip that went out of style ten years ago. Her eyes dart around the room before settling on me, out of place, in the center.

“I bought you some things.”

I notice, with horror, the bags from department stores dangling from her forearm.

“You didn’t have to do that.” I mean this on two levels: (1) Foster-whatevers get money to feed and clothe us, but that doesn’t mean they actually have to buy us shit; (2) Deb wears a nauseating amount of pink. Her scrubs right now boast pink kittens. Pink kittens. I don’t want anything in that bag. It probably has sequins.

“I wanted to.” Deb’s smile stretches like a worn-out sweater. She smiles too much, and I don’t trust it.

She ignores the fact that I’m looking at her like a monster from a horror film and walks toward the bed. Her bags rustle together, creating the creepy soundtrack of impending doom. I scoot over as she drops them on the bed, and they all crinkle together in the big crescendo that lets you know the main character is not going to live much longer. I try not to flinch. I hope she’ll just leave the stuff and go, so I can slide the bags under the bed without looking, but she rifles through them.