The quaking starts first. From deep inside. My body starts to shake. Then a guttural roar. Louder than the train whistle. Deeper than the roots where home used to be planted. I scream, ferociously, at the top of my lungs.

“You left me there by myself?!”

I sweep my arm across the table, knocking the feast to the floor. I smash the plates furiously to the ground. Listen to them shatter. My “family” stare straight ahead, unmoving.

“You stupid bitch! I hate you! I hate all of you! All you do is suck, suck the life out of me. You’ve been nothing but a burden. All of you! Why can’t you get your lives together?! Why can’t you be better? Why did I have to be born here with you?!”

I continue moving around the kitchen, breaking everything in my path. It looks like a tornado has ripped through the room.

“Well, guess what? I’m not taking care of any of you anymore! I dropped out of Dartmouth. I fucking quit. That’s why I’m back early. I guess we’ll all be failures together.” I fling my arms out to the side dramatically, as if I’m a movie villain.

“Don’t ask me for nothing else. No more leaning on Echo. Depending on Echo to fix it. I’m going nowhere now, just like y’all.”

Family is no more. Home is no more. Just wreckage. These pieces can never be mended. I am beyond anger. I am forsaken. Crucified by the unforgivable sins of my own mother. A Judas in a pink apron. Hate blares from my bones. I want to kill her where she sits.

“How?” I ask in a whisper, standing next to the stove full of pots, preparing to launch them at her like missiles. “How could you do that to me? Your little girl?”

My mother looks up, finds my eyes despite the dimness of the candlelight. The rest of the family continues to stare blankly ahead.

“Because I, too, was covered in shit and didn’t know it. I just wanted to put the bags down. They were very heavy. I could carry my own, but I couldn’t carry that.”

A moment passes. Then surrender. Big heaping sobs that fill up the entire apartment. My mouth turns up, throat stretching, barely able to contain the sound, which pours upward, cracking the ceiling. It dissolves. Only colors and light, like the aurora borealis at Professor Alexander-Grant’s house. Light everywhere. Raining down, filling me. Irradiated with glowing eyes. A phoenix. Risen. Merged with the power beyond.

Bodies sit. Hands join. Heads roll up and eyes meet. Maybe for the first time. Five diamonds. Unobstructed. Words come. The Chosen One’s prayer.

Let it be healed. Let it be renewed in the light. Let it be forgiven. Let it be released once and for all.