Anthony held my hand, and he kept crying, and he said he was sorry because he couldn’t be with me anymore, that he had been very foolish, but he just couldn’t risk his family and his marriage, he owed it to Hank. “I think that’s really on point,” I said. “You’re gonna get an A.”

I asked Aunt Deedee when she was gonna kick me out, but she said we could talk about it later. I asked her how it felt to be the mother of a murderer, but she said, “You’re not a murderer.” She seemed to have no idea Jason had killed me.

By the time Bunny came, I was feeling a lot better. Aunt Deedee had been gone for maybe days, and the only person who regularly came was Ann Marie. I asked her what she could remember of her coma and she said nothing. It was like being asleep. I was so jealous. It didn’t seem fair that she could almost die so much more than me and yet have it suck so much less.

Bunny was so real in my room and for the first time in a long time I felt like I was awake. She touched me all over, she touched my face and I figured out I had bruises on my face because of the way it felt as her fingers skimmed the skin. She even sniffed my hair at one point. It was like she was a mother dog and I was her lost pup. “I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I don’t know what else to do,” she said.

“You can tell me anything,” I said. “I’m transparent as glass.”

“My dad has basically stolen my identity.” I thought for a moment she was saying that he was doing drag as her, and I thought that was so fascinating, but it was just that he had stolen her Social Security number. “He has like five credit cards in my name, and there is a bank account with thousands of dollars in it, and he took out a mortgage in my name. You know those apartments they are building up on Grand? I guess he wanted to invest in them with Mr. Phong, but he couldn’t get a loan because of all the IRS stuff, so he used my stuff. He said the credit cards were to build up my credit, that it’s actually a good thing, but it’s like—Michael, it’s like several hundred thousand in debt all told. And he’s like, of course I’m gonna pay it off—”

“Lies,” I said.

“Right?” she said.

“Your father sprouts lies, it’s like he was cursed by a gypsy, oh my god, I bet that’s what happened!”

“And then he said the apartment buildings were actually a surprise birthday present and he even made it seem like it was because of the Ann Marie stuff that he didn’t tell me about it then. Which made me feel, just, just fucking awful about myself.”

“What an amazing lie,” I said. “He’s so good at it.”

“I just don’t know what to do.”

“Listen, I’ve been in a car accident, so I might not be the best person to help you with this. I think I might be dying and stuff.”

“Oh, I promise you’re not dying,” she said. “Your surgery went very well and they say you’ll make a full recovery.”

“Really! Oh wow, that’s such a big relief. Is this a real hospital and everything?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m so overjoyed, I can’t even tell you. Where’s Ann Marie?”

“What?”

“She keeps coming in here,” I said.

“Ann Marie died,” Bunny said.

“No,” I said. “I swear she hasn’t. She’s around here somewhere. She was just here.” I was going to tell her about Jesus doing performance art in my veins but decided that would sound too weird.

“Michael,” Bunny said. “I’ve been worried about those apartment buildings for a long time. And now it makes me just sick that they’re mine. That my name is on the deed.”

“Does it feel like a lot of responsibility?”

She was crying suddenly.

“It’s just like your name, but in a different font,” I said to comfort her.

“No, it’s just my dad has been freaked out about those buildings forever. Construction is running way over budget and he got this shady electrician to do all the panels with parts he got from China and then paid off the inspector. And—it’s probably fine! I mean, they’re up to code in China! But what if it isn’t fine? What if people move in there and it’s not right?”

“The sins of the father,” I said.

“If those fuse boxes malfunction,” she said, “people could die.”

“You can’t stop people from dying, they do it anyway.”

“What should I do?” she asked.

“You could burn them down,” I said.

“The apartment buildings?”

“Yeah.”

“What function would that serve?” she asked.

“Why, it would be poetic justice. I’ve always wanted to burn this town to the ground, did you know that?”

The next time I opened my eyes, I was looking at my mother, who was standing by the right side of my bed. I was in an incredible amount of pain in my midsection. Machines all around me were pooping jujubes of sound. Slow robot claws were being extended.

“He’s up,” she said. Aunt Deedee was on the other side of me, sitting in the single chair in my curtained-off enclosure, and I swiveled to look at her. She looked tired and numb and sad. She was holding my left hand, which had lots of tubes in it.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Why are you sorry?” she said.

“For being so much trouble,” I said.

“Don’t be an idiot,” my mother said, chewing savagely on her already short nails. “We’re just happy you’re not dead!”

“You have new bangs,” I said. She looked at me and there was a flash, some kind of explosion of memory, an intimacy we used to share, a way we once were madly in love with each other, a world lost, a building engulfed in flames. “It looks good,” I said.

“Well,” she said.

“How did the car accident happen?” I asked. “I just—why was I even driving?”

“What, honey?” Aunt Deedee asked.

“I know I was in a car accident,” I said, “but I can’t remember it.”

They looked at each other and for some reason I knew that Aunt Deedee had told my mother that I was gay. And then I remembered. The dark parking lot and the floating bright rectangles of the streetlights overhead. The sound of their laughter, the smell of the asphalt and blood and then a waft of spearmint. One of them must have been chewing gum. I started crying. “I was supposed to tell her,” I said. “I was supposed to get to tell her.”