She says, “Do you want to try something weird?” Out the window I see her looking up toward me, her face flushed from leaning over for so long. “Should we put dandelions in the salad? Look at this,” she says, clutching a bunch of dandelions from our lawn in a bouquet. “Mexicans kill for these, the little leaves,” she says. “And they fry the flowers.” I never ate dandelions before. And who cares.

“Is that too weird?” she says.

“Hey, yeah,” I say, drying my burned hand gingerly on my T-shirt. “Momma had a baby and the head popped off.” When I was a kid, we used to pick a dandelion and say this when we flicked the head off the stem. The water in the rice pot foams over the sides.

“Excuse me, Momma didn’t have a baby and the head popped off,” I say, correcting myself.

I walk over and grab a towel, move the rack down, push the chicken in, and close the oven. The door goes sping against the metal. It’s 7:02. Nothing comes to mind. Outside she looks up at the window.

“Is that a joke?” she says.

At this angle the sun cuts right through the house. It’s orange, purple, rose-colored light, blasting right through the house and spilling against everything.

“Fuck you,” she says.

It’s about time somebody said it. I can hear the familiar sound of it ringing in the background.

“You can never keep anything to yourself,” she says.

“What?” I say.

“In your head,” she says, standing at the doorway. “Forget it.” Over in the rice pot, there isn’t any water left. So the bottom is cooking way too fast. It’s, like, black. I use a coffee cup and dump some water in. It sizzles, a cloud of steam comes up. One more cup of water. The rice starts cooking again. My eyes are tearing. In a few seconds the whole wet mess is bubbling away. I feel like I scorched my face.

Lynn’s basket is overflowing with greenery and edible dandelions.

“Get out of my way,” she says. “You are an animal.”

“I’m sorry. Why did I say that? Is it too late to take it back?”

“What’s wrong with you?” she says.

Lynn goes over to the oven with a dish towel and slides the roasting pan out. She carries it past me, not even hot yet, out the back door, and I hear it go gong against the metal basement doors. I step up to the window. The chicken’s in the grass, onions, carrots, sliced oranges—the whole thing.

Lynn is standing in front of me now. The dish towel is wound around her hand.

“Cool,” I say. “How symbolic.” She says,

“I think we need therapists.”

“What can I say? I’m sorry,” I tell her.

“Why don’t you get down on your knees.”

I say, “I will if you want.” No one moves.