From the jungle, Bobby wrote her—not their father—a series of long letters, full of braggadocio and operatic violence. Science fiction, as she thought of them, stories from another planet. It was as if he was trying to incite some kind of sisterly reprimand from her, but she refused to take the bait. She never once wrote back.

The morning her father’s accountant told her that Bobby was killed, she vomited right there in the phone booth. Her only pair of sandals was now permanently wrecked.

Not long after, she received word from the colony’s elders that her behavior was interfering with “the equilibrium” of the others. She wasn’t surprised. One evening, feeling paranoid, she’d thrown a sandbag at a Buddhist monk named Nguyen. But because the community did not believe in the brutality of expulsion, they requested that she leave voluntarily. Quietly, she packed up her things.

She drifted from town to town in the Northwest like a ghost, stopping wherever she saw signs for organic produce. Daddy never contacted her to discuss Bobby. She knew it was on her to call him, and she wasn’t about to do it. No fuckin’ way.

The day after her father’s funeral, Mary-Sue woke up from her alcohol-induced coma, jumpy and discombobulated. She pulled the drapes open. It had snowed heavily while she slept and the city appeared to be covered in icing sugar. The capitol looked beneficent with its white papal beanie. I absolve you, Mary-Sue Ireland.

She drove to the funeral home and charged right into the chapel. An easel with an old woman’s portrait named the honoree as Mary Susanna Lombardi. Mary-Sue took a seat in the back while the organist with Parkinson’s played a hymn that seemed well-known to everyone but her. Only about seven guests were in attendance. Mary Susanna Lombardi’s body lay serenely in a steel coffin that looked to Mary-Sue like the hood of a Rolls Royce. The coffin trade—what a racket. She glanced around for Mr. Evans, the funeral director. It turned out he was standing at the far end of the stage, his eyes fixed on her. There was a flesh-colored Band-Aid over his brow. He nodded at her slowly and began his approach.

“Hello, Mary-Sue. Would you like to sign the guest book, too?”

Mr. Evans led her to his office in the rear of the home, and gestured for her to sit in one of two overstuffed armchairs.

“Honestly, I was hoping I’d see you back here.” He closed the door and retreated behind his desk. There was a smugness to his smile. “You know, I didn’t file a police report. I thought we’d settle this mano a mano.”

He was baiting her. She held her fist down. “I came to get my father’s ashes.”