“If she comes,” Viola said.

“I told her one o'clock,” Mother said, sitting down at the near end. “So we'd have a chance to plan our strategy before she gets here. I talked to Carol Chen--”

“Her daughter nearly joined the Cyclists last year,” I explained to Bysshe and Viola.

“She said they had a family gathering, like this, and simply talked to her daughter, and she decided she didn't want to be a Cyclist after all.” She looked around the table. “So I thought we'd do the same thing with Perdita. I think we should start by explaining the significance of the Liberation and the days of dark oppression that preceded it--”

“I think,” Viola interrupted, “we should try to talk her into just going off the ammenerol for a few months instead of having the shunt removed. If she comes. Which she won't.”

“Why not?”

“Would you? I mean, it's like the Inquisition. Her sitting here while all of us 'explain' at her. Perdita may be crazy, but she's not stupid.”

“It's hardly the Inquisition,” Mother said. She looked anxiously past me toward the door. “I'm sure Perdita--” She stopped, stood up, and plunged off suddenly through the asparagus.

I turned around, half-expecting Perdita with light-up lips or a full-body tattoo, but I couldn't see through the leaves. I pushed at the branches.

“Is it Perdita?” Viola said, leaning forward.

I peered around the mulberry bush. “Oh, my God,” I said.

It was my mother-in-law, wearing a black abayah and a silk yarmulke. She swept toward us through a pumpkin patch, robes billowing and eyes flashing. Mother hurried in her wake of trampled radishes, looking daggers at me.

I turned them on Viola. “It's your grandmother Karen,” I said accusingly. “You told me you didn't get through to her.”

“I didn't,” she said. “Twidge, sit up straight. And put your slate down.”