“When will they bring my mother up?” I ask, voice thick with a mixture of hope and dread, the likes of which I hope to never feel again.

He blinks at me through his thick lenses. “Who?” He shakes his head. “Another person fell? Oh. Well, that’s not my department, either, I’m afraid.”

EPILOGUE

THREE MONTHS LATER

Fleischman’s Deli is world-famous for its dollar-coin-size latkes, its Arnold Palmer slushies, and as of this summer, its exotic artwork of Mama flashing out of every nook and cranny.

THE LADY OF THE HOUSE, reads the caption beneath a portrait of her made entirely of dried pasta noodles. That was the start of it all, that same week we found her. But then customers and family alike began to bring by their own bizarre testaments to her: Her stage name in used Popsicle sticks, a neon sign of her profile, a pop art movie poster remade in condiment-colored paints (we smelled that one to make sure). Our uncle Duke hung them up with his kids—Brando’s sisters—who never met Mama but find the whole decorative choice very funny.

It’s been mobbed since the news came out: of who she was, and of her discovery; of Teddy’s death, and of those final moments between them (Mina recorded everything). But Uncle Duke still waits for Brando to come back—you can tell, from the way he watches the park beyond in his free moments, a place Brando used to love, for its many old and overgrown trees.

Tai and I are drinking Arnold Palmer slushies with our cousins—Molls and Ems—out back, when Tai pulls out the Pocket Girlfriend she’s been playing with (the originals also experienced a surge in popularity since Teddy’s death).

“Haven’t we had enough of Uncle Teddy’s tech for a while?” I say. We miss Teddy, despite the lies and the violence that poisoned Mama’s relationship with him, and with us. Because people in our lives are composed of many different shades of gray, and we can’t help but love him for offering his version of love when we needed it most, even if he wasn’t always the man we thought he was. Even though he made mistakes with graver repercussions than the rest of us. He thought he was the vampyrrhic boy. And I think he probably was, at heart.

“We still don’t know if the hologram of Mama was his,” Tai notes.

But who else could have crafted what everyone calls impossible technology besides our uncle, who told us himself he was working on holograms at our last lunch? Teddy’s creation, convincing enough to fool our own father. He thought he glimpsed Mama on the property with his very own eyes.

But it’s true: So many men have crafted visions of Mama that suited them.