She lets out another one of her tight sighs and grips the steering wheel. Then she remembers a recent commitment to take all her problems to the Lord, so she starts to pray. “Dear Lord,” she starts, “please help this family and guide our thoughts toward You.” When my mother prays, she has this creepy prayer voice she uses, which makes me feel like I have snails crawling up my back. “Lord,” she continues, “we just thank You today, for Your blessings, and also for Your wisdom, Lord, and we know that if we trust in You as a family, You will bring us to the same place together.” Then she gets to the point, which is to guide Serena’s footsteps closer to the will of God. At this point, I sigh heavily. It’s wrong to sigh in the middle of a prayer, but I can’t help it. In addition to being the new principal of the high school and raising five kids, my mom is in church multiple times per week and maintains committed prayer relationships on the phone. When Mom started dating my stepfather, she joined his church, where the half of Colchis that isn’t Catholic goes. That was seven years ago. Scot had been recently widowed and had a baby daughter, Nora, who is now my little sister. My mom got involved with him and then added religion later to smooth things out with his parents, who didn’t trust this older woman, this highly educated single mother of three.

We—Aaron, Allegra, and I—thought her relationship with Scot was going to be short-lived—after all, we’d seen Mom through other guys before—but then she got pregnant.

Oops.

A prominent educator in a conservative county getting knocked up by a younger man, what a disaster. When Mom and Scot told us they were going to get married and have a baby, all I can remember is Allegra sobbing about overpopulation. My mom and the baby, Zack, were baptized on the same day.

Since the prayer’s not likely to end soon, I take The Communist Manifesto, also from Mr. C.’s room, out of my backpack. When I open it up, it has that faint smell of burning paper that old books have.

“Put that away,” my mother snaps.

I turn the page.

“I said put it away.”

“Me? I can’t read now?”

“I’m waiting.”

“Fine.” I put it back in my backpack. “I thought you were talking to someone else.”

She resumes her prayer, still on the subject of Serena, which really irritates me. Even when talking to God, I think it’s rude for people to refer to you in the third person when you are sitting right there. She’s having a hard time maintaining her prayer voice, though, so she gives up and leaves God hanging.