She gestured around them, at the room filled with small forgotten shiny things. “I would decoupage them, put them up on Pinterest. Cass loved them, and she kept buying them from me. When my dad found out, inevitably, because he hires a PI to keep track of me, he threatened to put me out of business. Cole suggested I threaten him back.”

“Did you threaten to cut off his balls and deep-fry them in a vat of hot oil in front of him? Because that’s kind of my response,” Noelle said, her whole body puffed up in anger.

It was so freeing to have someone else be righteously indignant on her behalf. She’d never given herself the space to feel that anger. Somehow, Noelle doing it let her move out of the flashback into a more neutral space.

Miriam chuckled. “No, I threatened the only thing he cares about. His name. There had been rumors for years that he was running high-end drugs through his car imports. Bored society wife kind of drugs, nothing he’d think of as ‘low-class.’ He’d built this reputation as a big Community Hero, appearing on telethons and donating giant checks to shelters for homeless children, that kind of thing. He wouldn’t be able to stand losing face. His ego won’t let him be exposed. He needs adulation.”

“Wow, so wealthy white dude playing with what he sees as ‘high-class’ drugs and being totally unconcerned about prison?” Noelle asked, sounding disgusted.

“Oh yeah, it’s some deeply fucked-up racist privilege in action,” Miriam affirmed.

“What the hell is he getting out of it that’s worth the risk?” Noelle asked. “Just getting to playact as the Big Cool Drug Boss?”

Miriam nodded. “Basically. I told him I had proof of what he was doing, and that if he ever came anywhere near my art or my career again, I would release the evidence. I can’t actually release the proof without someone finding out that Cole got it illegally, but it spooked him. He hasn’t come anywhere near me since. I assume, as I’ve built a platform, he’s gotten less willing to test me. If he tried anything, I would release his info to the Bloomers, and, like all fandoms, they have the capacity for vicious violence.”

“You know, if I were you,” Noelle said thoughtfully, “I think I’d yell at my mom a lot, every time I saw her.”

“I was trained not to yell from a pretty early age.” Miriam shrugged, and Noelle wrapped her up in a bear hug.

“So, now there are Mimi Roz paintings in the attic. Which I assume were stashed there, somehow, magically, by Cass,” Noelle said.

Miriam nodded into Noelle’s flannel, where her face was still buried.

“And you feel…elated? Terrified? Shell-shocked?” Noelle asked.

Miriam nodded again. “Yes. All of the above.”

“What are you going to do with them?”