Ma walks into the living room, plucking the family pictures from the metal entertainment center, resting them on the glass table in front of me. As she sprays the entertainment center with furniture polish, the scent of lemon and sunshine assaults my nostrils, and it smells like home. When I’m here, it feels as peaceful as sitting in an open field with trees and listening to the leaves sway back and forth. She hums Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles and her wavy blond hair falls over her creamy pale shoulders. Her white cotton shirt and jeans engulf her small frame.

“Momma, why is Amy on my payroll if she isn’t cleaning?”

“I kicked her to the curb. She was bringing bad spirits into my house.” She shakes her head. “She was side-eyeing Herold.”

Ma is on a witch hunt that spirits are real.

Why does she believe in that bogus shit? Beats me.

Around Halloween, Ma and her best friend acted like Sam and Dean from Supernatural. She and loose-cannon Karen set boundaries for these so-called ghosts that roam the earth by sprinkling salt and rice around the doors of the house.

The shit show didn’t stop there. Alana and I were forced to stay inside so a ghost wouldn’t possess us.

But wait. There’s more. They lit candles around the house and ‘cleansed’ the house with a sage stick.

I hate the fucking smell of that stick.

Mom and loose-cannon Karen (that has a ring to it) think the devil rises from the dead to take souls with him.

When I was sixteen and Alana was eleven, I snuck her out to go trick-or-treating. I never did that again. My fun-size ma beat my six-foot-two ass with a broom that left welts on my back and told me not to ever celebrate the holiday while living under her roof, so when I moved out and got my first apartment, I celebrated the holiday like Satan was my lord and savior.

Ma sets the picture back on the center and grabs the broom from the beige wall to sweep the hardwood floors. The straw brushes against my feet. My feet don’t hurt as much as they did when I went running a few days ago, so I’m not limping as bad.

“Spit on it,” she says, holding the broom in my face.

“Ma!”

“Don’t give me any lip, boy. Do what I say.”

Rolling my eyes, I spit on the broom. If someone sweeps over your feet and you don’t spit on it it’s bad luck.

“Why are you here in the middle of a workday?” She studies my face like she’s trying to figure out a Rubik’s Cube. “You got a woman pregnant?”

“No.”

“You got an STD?”