Bay sat next to Osha, a girl I didn’t know well. She had red apple cheeks and a broad nose and up-pointing hair and a mischievous look. When Bay leaned over to whisper in her ear, I felt white rage.

Sara sketched out what would follow—I was not to talk, only to listen. As for the rest of the family, they could say whatever they wanted to me or to Pear. Sara said, “After the rebirth you have to earn our trust again, like when you just arrived.”

I said, “Do you mean”—I paused, surprised how hollow my voice sounded, like I couldn’t get the air out—“that you don’t trust me?”

Someone laughed. I turned, inspecting the family’s faces, but they looked neither sympathetic nor cruel, but blank. They surrounded me like the frames of a kinetoscope, all nearly identical. I already had tears in my eyes. Sara extended her arm to the family, palm up. “All right,” she said. “Go ahead.”

“Pear,” Bip said, “you never lend a hand. Many times I’ve been carrying a heavy basket or pail, and you just look at me and walk right by. Is it because you’re too old?” The group murmured in agreement. I felt pleasure hearing Pear criticized, instead of me.

A long silence, during which I almost calmed down, and then Bip’s voice again: “Harmony, you never left your past behind,” he said. “Often I hear you talking about the past.” I was open; Dice had opened me up, and I was horrified by Bip’s words.

As I sat there, I imagined Queen standing on top of a silver-topped train crawling through the red Southwest.

Sara pulled the cord for the center bulb, and the light flickered on, off, on. Everyone’s high-noon face: Bright forehead. Shadowed eyes. I imagined myself into another place: wandering through my childhood yard with a prism over my eyes. Its bifurcated effects, depending on how I rotated it: a mirror that showed the sky on one side, and on the other, a blurry rainbow.

“Why are you here, Harmony?” said Luxor. “Are you here—to enjoy yourself?”

Yes, I thought, and to have friends, to not have to face the world alone. To know my position with certainty, to live a wild essential life. To stand behind the curtain and see nature’s hidden workings, the slow and confident engineering of the plants, the subjectivity of animals. Luxor’s tone was contemptuous. “Are you here to volunteer like a tourist? To pass the time? To fall in love?”

Bay spoke next. “Harmony, you’re too focused on your desires,” he said. He was talking about last night, I was sure. Instead, he said: “I’ve seen you eyeing the chocolate chips. You should treat food more like medicine, less like something to crave.”