Out in the kitchen, Bree’s mom is making coffee. She only turns when the process demands it, taking a mug from the cupboard, looking at the four of us getting ready to leave with no indication of anything: no curiosity as to who I am, or what we might’ve been doing ransacking Hazel’s closet. Bree has the mask and makeup kit hidden inside her fleece, and her gaze settles on a random corner as she grinds her feet into her sneakers.

“How’s it going, Faye?” Something in Sage’s fresh, smiling face makes it clear that she’s giving Bree’s mom shit, using her own friendliness to call Faye out for not making anybody feel even remotely welcome.

Faye returns her gaze, leaning languidly against the counter as the mini Keurig machine whirs. “Oh, you know, Sage. Nothing caffeine and a lobotomy can’t cure.” Takes her mug, watching the artificial sweetener dissolve as she stirs, adding in a different tone, “That trash should’ve gone out days ago,” on some closed mother-daughter frequency.

Bree looks over. “I’m the only one capable of taking out the trash?”

A beat. “Take it when you go.” The curtain of Faye’s hair falls, and we might as well already be gone. She carries her coffee to the living room.

Bree drags the bag from the can, another from the closet, slamming things around. As Sage and I each grab a bag of Jell-O bombs, Hazel says, “Can I come with you guys? Please?”

Bree’s no is a given, but then her gaze flicks to the living room. “Okay. For a little while.” Another territory gained; Hazel, as war profits.

We walk down the hill, Bree and I together, Hazel trotting along ahead of us, talking to Sage a mile a minute. “She seems okay,” I say quietly, nodding to Hazel when Bree looks over. “After the other night.”

“Oh.” Bree shrugs. “She’s fine. She just freaks out when she feels like nobody sees her.”

There’s something so spot-on about that; absolute truth. I pause. “Where does your mom work?”

“Lots of places.” Her brusqueness punches an awkward hole between us. She speaks quickly, filling it in, showing her anger isn’t for me: “Forever 21 in the mall. Part-time. She’s a bartender at Carrigan’s Pub, too. Most nights.”

I make a small noise. “Sounds busy.”

Bree says nothing for a moment. “It’s really that she doesn’t want to be here. She could come home a lot more than she does. She says being here messes her head up. Makes her think about Dad, something stupid like that.” She gestures to herself and Hazel. “It’s us. We remind her. Like, that she was married and procreated and once owned a waffle iron, you know?”

I nod, saying slowly, “An inconvenient truth?”