Fun Day

Every year, there is one day when everyone loves the three sisters. Never mind the oldest’s going to therapy next door to the school bus-stop, or the youngest’s penchant for feeding her lunch to stray animals (sometimes to a cat, sometimes to a dog), which must by now surely have translated into rabies. Or the oddness of the middle sister, who twists her thin arms strangely when she doesn’t know the answer to a question and has too many rows of pencils, all lined up exactly on her desk, point to point.

This day is Fun Day.

Their father, William, is CEO of a company (that sells pants? belts?), and Fun Day is like office picnics they have seen on TV—the way real farms are like the ones for ants. It makes them gloat. There is cotton candy; there are games wherein stuffed animals can be won; and there are sideshows.

The oldest, Elizabeth, and the middle, Lucille, decide to try their luck at a game. “Try their luck” is a phrase belonging to their father. They know they will win. They always win on Fun Day. They can fail to squirt water into the clown’s mouth every time—every time! What are the odds of that? And still, the man behind the counter will say, We have a winner! They are the daughters of the CEO. On Fun Day, as they are not on any other day, they are royalty.

Elizabeth has her eyes set on a giant bear that will not, of course, prove soft. These kinds of bears, she knows from experience, are always stuffed with what feels like newspaper. Lucille would like the enormous frog. There will be no need to fight. After they lose wildly, each will get the prize of her choosing, the screaming of other children rising up delightfully around them.

But Sophie, who is the youngest, decides she would like to visit the sideshow. She visits the fortune teller because she wants to know the future. This is their last Fun Day, their mother, Anna, says because it’s true: she’s dying. The chemo is a troop of good soldiers attacking the bad cancer, the doctor has said. The idea of soldiers marching through her mother’s body, attacking cells who are not soldiers and who cannot fight back, horrifies Sophie. She prefers to think of it as medicine—a kind of viscous, cherry-flavored sludge—only it doesn’t work.

Sophie is curious to find out when, exactly, her mother will die. She would like to be prepared, with a face most right for mourning, which she practices at home in the bathroom mirror. The face is devastated but dignified. She will hold her chin high and lower her eyes so the eyelashes almost touch her cheekbones. She will bite, just lightly, her lower lip. Oh! the mourners will say. What a trooper! And the sleeves of her black dress will be just a little bit too long, a reminder to all that she is now a daughter without a mother.

The fortune teller is stationed inside a tent that smells like lavender. There are curtains made of beads Sophie must part in order to get to her. The fortune teller has no visitors. She tells Sophie she may sit down right away. Sophie holds out her hand to shake because she is practicing the kind of motherless daughter she will be, which is a polite one. But the fortune teller simply looks at Sophie’s hand, as though she has never seen one before.

Sophie lines up her heels like she’s a dancer. “I’m Sophie,” she says.

“Oh!” The fortune teller sounds just like Sophie’s mother already out the door, remembering she’s forgotten her wig. Her gums show when she smiles. “You can call me Madame Felicia.”

“Do you have cards?” Sophie says. “Because I’m looking to find out about death.”

Madame Felicia nods. She takes out a pack of cards and flips over four. She sets them down on her table one at a time. There...