I’M OUTSIDE AND Ma’s in. From where I sit on the back stoop with A Clockwork Orange, I hear canned TV laughter, then silence; a song and a half from the radio before she shuts it off, too keyed up about her first day on the job to settle. Probably ironing her uniform shirt, one pink curler rolled into her bangs, reaching for a cup of coffee on the end table each time she checks out the window for Dad’s old Suburban pulling into the lot. He’s late, and she won’t leave until he’s here. She worries about me being alone in a new place.

Ma’s ringtone sounds. A minute later, the screen door creaks open on its metal arm. “He’s on his way.” Another creak as she shifts her weight, gauging me. “Think you can handle taking the meat loaf out when the timer goes off?”

“I’ll give it my all.”

Her foot meets the top of my butt, bump. “Miserable brat.” She wedges in beside me, smelling like that vanilla perfume she asks me to get her for her birthday every year because it’s cheap and easy to find. “School so bad you can’t talk about it?”

I glance over; she hasn’t asked all afternoon, not even when we ate microwave popcorn and watched the end of a cooking show together. On the other side of the Terraces, a kid screams in play. I swear I’ve been here before. Not Birchwood Terraces, exactly, but other developments like it, named after the trees cut down to build the place: Oakfield, Elm Park, Spruce Way. We’ve moved three times in four years, and twice when I was in elementary school, following Dad’s construction work, but somehow, we always end up right here.

“Figured I’d let you bring it up.” She waits. “Let me guess. Waterboarding. The rack.”

I shrug. “Your words, not mine.”