“Mother.” There was a warning note to my voice.

“Brooklyn, breathe. You worry too much.” She rubbed her fingers lightly across the frown lines of my forehead, then smiled sweetly. “Peace, baby girl.”

I almost groaned. She’d passed through to another place and now wore what my siblings and I liked to call her Sunny Bunny face. When she clicked on that eerie, happy mask, all battles were over.

I shook my head in defeat. Nothing penetrated the Sunny Bunny face.

“We’re not finished here, mom,” I said. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“Perhaps, in time.” She glanced around again. “Do me a favor, sweetie.”

“Okay.” I said it hesitantly.

She patted my cheek. “Don’t tell your father you saw me here.”

“What?”

“Namasté, honey. Gotta go.”

Before I could stop her, she zigzagged around me and raced away, up the stairs. My yoga mom was speedy when she wanted to be.

I stared at the empty stairway for a few seconds. So, it was official: My mother had gone insane. The upside was, back at the commune, nobody would notice.

But seriously, what the heck was that all about?

I took a big sip of wine, tried to lighten up, align my own chakras, whatever, and continued downstairs.

My mother was the most open, honest person I knew. She couldn’t keep a secret to save her life, or so I’d always thought. Was something going on between her and Abraham? Clearly the answer was yes. The real question was-what was going on between her and Abraham?

And did I really want to know the answer?

“Nothing’s going on,” I told myself, then repeated it a few times. Of course there was nothing going on. Mom and Dad had been sweethearts ever since they’d met at the tie-dyed T-shirt booth during a Grateful Dead weekend blowout at the Ventura Fairgrounds in 1972. We’d heard the story often enough to recite it by heart.