I put the match to the soft cloth and watch it sizzle and snap, just like my life. As the fire climbs up the makeshift fuse and reaches the vinyl-coated paper, the gunpowder pops and crackles as the orange glow consumes the thin trails of powder that make up the bird’s tail, rising up to its breast and across its outstretched wings. The final flames consume the phoenix, and I feel a little better. Just a little. I still feel empty, but some of the anger is gone—captured on paper for the portfolio committee.

OLIVIA

Two weeks before we move, Aunt Sarah comes home for the weekend. There are still no offers on the house, and apparently Aunt Sarah thinks she can work some sort of real estate witchcraft that we cannot. I hope she packed all of her best candles. My mother and I are in the kitchen, drinking our tea, when she walks through the door in a hurried fluster, muttering something about goddamn toll roads as she rolls her tiny suitcase behind her.

When she sees us on either side of the little bistro table, the whirring wheels come to a stop. She lets out a sigh that sounds a lot like “Hello,” but has the tone of “What the hell.”

Aunt Sarah rolls through the kitchen and pulls out a chair, lowering herself into it as if she walked here from the airport.

“You look destroyed,” I say, taking another sip of my tea. “What time was your flight?”

Aunt Sarah lets out a little huff. “Too early. We took off just before midnight. I slept through the flight but the ride from the airport was brutal.”

Mom is stirring her coffee, watching us as if we’re a new TV show she’s heard a lot about but hasn’t seen before.

I push myself away from the table. “You want tea?” I take a teacup out of the cupboard and set it on the counter.

Aunt Sarah eyes the piece of pink-and-gold china. “We have teacups?”

“We do now,” Mom says, dipping her bag into her cup again. She looks nervous.

“We bought them at the weekend antique market downtown.” I take the yellow teapot off of the burner and pour steaming water into the little cup. “We have Berry Blossom, black…” I rummage through the little tins. “And plain old herbal.”

Aunt Sarah shakes her head. “Coffee. I need the hard stuff. Lots of it.”

“The hazelnut stuff?” I pull the canister out of the cupboard and shake it.

“You know it.” Aunt Sarah sets her head on the table, and then, as if she had forgotten she was there, her head pops up and turns toward my mother. Her voice is soft but I can still hear her. “How’s it going?”

Mom looks down at her teacup and nods her head, almost imperceptibly. “It’s good. We’re doing good.”