The moment that phone went on the hook it rang.

I hit Fellis’s arm. “Turn that down, I want to know who it is.”

“What the fuck,” Fellis said, and he turned the TV down.

We listened, and Beth was talking but I couldn’t hear anything.

“Satisfied?” Fellis said, and then he said, “Hey, what’d your girl want anyway? She coming over?”

“Turn the show back on,” I said. Whoever Beth was talking to, it wasn’t Tabitha.

Fellis turned the show back on, and Judge Milian banged her gavel. “Verdict to the plaintiff—”

“Fellis!” Beth said.

“For fuck’s sake, Beth, what?”

Beth stood in the living room, the phone to her ear, its tan cord taut.

“You got your auntie all upset,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Fellis muted the TV.

Beth spoke into the phone. “I’ll come get you and Lily,” she said. “I’ll give you one of my Ativans so you can calm down. Yes, I’m coming right now.”

Beth brought the phone to the hook and hung it up.

Fellis was standing up. “What I do? Why does she need an Ativan?”

Beth slipped her shoes on and grabbed her keys. She opened the front door, and I smelled the dead caterpillars. “You gave her my Adderall,” she said.

. . .

Fellis was all worked up while Beth went and got Aunt Alice, yet I didn’t have much to say to calm him down. He wasn’t worried about her health—he just didn’t want her to yell at him, because unlike her sister, Aunt Alice could rip into Fellis.

The phone rang while Beth was gone, and I went to it and picked it up, yet nobody said anything. “I know it’s you,” I said and hung up.

In the living room, Fellis had the TV off and he was sitting upright rubbing his face. I sat down next to him.

“It was an accident,” I said. “Quit worrying.”

“What is that?” Fellis said.

“What?”

“You smell that?”

The chicken and green bean casserole was on fire in the stove, and Fellis went to the cupboard under the sink and grabbed the fire extinguisher, and he squeezed the trigger but nothing came out.

“Remove the pin,” I said.

He did, and he sprayed white into the stove.

The front door opened and then banged shut.

“Is that the chicken?” Beth said. Alice was behind her, coughing, and between the two of them little Lily peeked her head at us.

“It’s out,” Fellis said.

“Get me that pill,” Alice said. She was fanning herself. “I can’t breathe.”

“Oh, calm down,” Beth said. “You’re overreacting. It’s an Adderall.”

“I’m not overreacting, Beth.” Alice picked up Lily and put her on the couch. She turned on the TV but didn’t change the channel from The People’s Court.