On the morning Auntie Em rattled up the driveway in her ancient pickup, hauling what looked like some kind of UFO, my father met her and immediately started yelling. Aunt Em hung her arm out the window and flashed him a self-satisfied grin. She must have said something smart because he stopped his tirade real quick, dumbfounded.

  I watched this exchange, eagerly, from the bay window of my room. I just wished I could hear them. Maybe if I was quick, I could catch the rest before they knew I was watching.

  Aunt Emma was my favorite person in the world. And not just because she had free reign to piss my dad off. She was an honest-to-God war hero, and a Knight.

  I threw an oversized sweater on over my shorts and T-shirt, and ran barefoot down the stairs to get a closer look. No way I was gonna miss this.

  My little brother Matthew trumpeted something to his friends over the sound of clanging swords from the tv in the living room.

  “Hey! We got company!” I yelled at him.

  “It’s my sister,” he said over his headset, talking to some other kid over the Rhode Island Intranet. “It’s not the kind I can pause!” he said back to me, eyes still transfixed and blearily reflecting the screen.

  “I know, ya dummy, but it’s Auntie Em!”

  “Oh, dip,” he said, tearing his headset off and running to slip on shoes next to me. “Why didn’t she tell us she was coming?”

  “I think she didn’t want to give dad the opportunity to say no,” I replied, yanking the door open and stumbling out.

  Autumn was here, like here here, in Rhode Island. Orange and yellow littered the lawn and the trees swayed in the wind, a shimmering sunset of color. My father’s greasy face shone red from the chill wind as much as yelling.

  “You can stay,” I heard him saying as I crashed against the porch railing, straining to hear. “But I’m not letting you put whatever that thing is in the barn!”

  The wind was in strong from whatever direction was to the left of me, and sent my dark curls dancing in my vision. I should have thrown it into a bun. Aunt Em didn’t have to worry about her hair getting in the way. Her mother wasn’t around to tell her how to keep her hair. Or well, I guess neither was mine since she was all the way in Provenance, working for the mayor. But her influence was felt. Aunt Em ran her fingers along the short cropped sides of her hair, a habit she’d kept as long as I’d known her.

  “Look, Gregg,” she said, “where else am I gonna keep obviously stolen contraband from the Dreadnaught? You want me to park it right in the drive?”

  “Hell no, Emma! Jesus!”

  Auntie Em just raised her eyebrows and gestured to the barn behind the house. My father cursed and walked back towards the porch.

  “So I can put it in the barn?” she called back to him.

  “Just make it quick, Em!”

  His eyes turned to me. I gave him my sweetest ‘I’m your youngest daughter’ smile in an attempt to diffuse any anger. He sighed and smiled sheepishly. He didn’t like yelling around me. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, just that he felt bad about it afterward.

  “Hey, Kat, baby. I was going to make a frozen pizza but now that your aunt is here—” the way he said ‘your aunt’ seemed to imply it was a stand-in for some harsher term. “Now that she’s here, maybe we should make something else?”

  “Dumplings?” I offered.

  “Why not?” he replied.

  “Yes!” I pumped my fist in celebration and looked at Matthew. We high fived and ran in unison to get the kitchen ready. I was halfway to the kitchen before I realized that maybe this was all to get me away from Auntie Em so I didn’t see what she was up to in the barn.

  What my daddy didn’t know was that Em, and I were tight and she was probably going to show me anyway.

  My father stormed past, as Matt and I got the fillings started. He reminded us to make sure to season the filling, and continued up the stairs to his office. He wasn’t one to skip out on helping us make dumplings, but he also was working on some academic paper for the University. I also knew that he liked to drink when my aunt was over, so maybe he was off to do that.

  Who knows?

  I frowned and grabbed the pre-made dumpling sheets from the fridge.

  “What’s the deal between dad and Auntie Em anyway?” Matt asked after we’d been working for some time.

  “I don’t know exactly,” I said. “Something about the war? And apparently when Nona got sick, dad had to take off work to help, and Auntie Em didn’t.”

  “Hmm,” Matt said to himself. He was ten, so he was capable of some amount of thoughtfulness. If only in short bursts. “But wasn’t she off fighting to save the world?” he asked.

  “Greg doesn’t see it that way,” Emma Gallahger said as she strode into the kitchen, a fresh sheen of sweat on her brow, and a roguish smile on her moderately chapped lips. Em was only two or so inches taller than me, maybe 5’6” or so, but she always seemed to tower over us. She wore a classic jeans and flannel combo that accentuated her broad shoulders, and even without those two inches her legend would have dwarfed us anyway. She was larger than life.

  “Auntie Em!” Matt shouted with the enthusiasm of a kid. He tackled her around the waist before Em picked him up and swung him around.

  I hung back and waited for my turn. I was thinking maybe a side hug? What was appropriate for an 18 year old?

  Em set Matt down, and opened her arms out to me. Ah, crap. I was gonna have to go in for a real hug.

  She pulled me in tight, and I was surprised to find myself squeezing her back.

  It had been a while since I’d seen her. I must have missed her.

  As I broke from her hug I asked, “yeah, what’s up with you and dad?”

  “Only twenty years of grievances and a heap of Catholic guilt. What’s this?” she asked, promptly changing the subject. “Dumplings? Man, I was gonna show you how to make carbonara!”

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  “What’s carbonara?” Matt asked.

  I wondered too, but was far too cool to show it.

  “‘What’s carbonara?’ You have me seriously considering calling child services.” Em answered. “What would your Italian ancestors say? But I guess I’ll help with the dumplings.”

  “Carbanara?” Matt asked. “Or is it pronounced Carbo-nara?” he asked, gesturing in an offensively over italian way.

  “Of course it is!” Aunt Em said, and then putting her fingers together in a mimicry of Matt’s super-Italian stylings, and exaggerating the syllables. “A-car-bon-ara!”

  I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it.

  Aunt Emma’s fingers were long and thin like mine—the fingers of a musician, she sometimes said—but there was a ruggedness to them that mine lacked. My nails had clear polish on them and the tips of my fingers were soft. Hers had a chipped fading black polish, and were rough where she had developed her guitar-playing calluses. When she pinched the dough around the filling, her fingers moved with the sureness of long practice. Mine were not nearly as good, and Matt's left holes that she had to go in and fix for him.

  Em made everything look easy. She always said that it was the benefit of an early retirement, that she got to practice as many skills as she wanted. But I liked to believe that it was some kind of magic. I never saw her mess up.

  You don’t always know which moments are the ones you are supposed to savor. This was the last time the three of us would be together like this, and had I known it... well, maybe it would have ruined it. Maybe it was perfect as is. Just the three of us in the kitchen, being silly together.

  Once we were done, and the dumplings were in a steamer on the stove, Auntie Em excused herself to head back out to the barn. As if knowing it was safe, my sister Ruth came down the stairs not thirty seconds later.

  “Hey Mattie, go turn off your game! The electricity isn’t free.”

  “Oh spit!” Matt said, “what time is it?”

  “I don’t know, ah,” Ruth looked at her watch. “A little after seven?”

  “Oh, jeez! I gotta be at a raid right now! Can I play for—”

  “Yeah, sure, go for it.”

  “Thanks Ruthie!” he said as he rushed into the other room.

  For the next couple minutes it was just the two of us.

  “How is your audition practice going?” she asked after some amount of awkward silence.

  I was only just starting to appreciate the fact that she wasn’t trying to be bossy. Our parents were both busy and she must feel like she had to step in to keep us on track. I wasn’t able to appreciate that then, though. Then, I was just annoyed.

  I felt like it was always the audition. It was all anyone talked about. I practiced every morning and every evening on the damn thing while my father, my sister, and sometimes mom watched over my shoulder like some kind of vulture.

  Not only did they care about my education, but they claimed that it was ‘vital to preserving our human culture in the face of the encroaching galactic hegemony.’ Not sure what that meant, but it always seemed a little xenophobic to me.

  “I got to watch the stove,” I said.

  “I can watch the stove if you need more time. And have you chosen your personal selection?”

  “I don’t know. I keep changing my mind.”

  “What about one of your own—”

  “Juilliard wouldn’t be impressed by anything I’ve written.”

  I put my finger in a pile of salt on the counter and swirled it around. I should have just gotten a paper towel and cleaned it up, but it gave me something to look at that wasn’t Ruth Gallahger or her concern.

  “Who cares about Juilliard?” Aunt Emma said as she strode back in. She ignored my sister, and my stunned silence, and opened the fridge. Finding what she wanted, an apple, and closing the fridge with her foot, she leaned against the counter and began cutting into the apple with a pocket knife. “All the best music teachers are on the Dreadnaught.”

  “Despite The Aliens poaching all our best talent,” my sister said sharply, “Juilliard is still one of the best music programs in the world.”

  Auntie Em popped an apple slice in her mouth and chewed loudly for a few seconds before offering, “sounds like something your father would say. But you haven’t been to the Dreadnaught. It’s what the world should be: Everyone working together for the good of humanity. Juilliard is working for the good of the dollar.”

  “Humanity, Auntie Em? Or the Somnifer?”

  Regardless of anyone’s feelings about it, the Dreadnaught was the technological and cultural center of the world. It was the headquarters of the Knights of the Eternal Beacon, and the thing that had kept us all from the abyss those many years ago.

  Auntie Em shrugged and looked to me.

  “How’s your mom doing by the way?” she asked.

  “Still working for the governor,” I replied.

  Emma made a thoughtful sound and seemed unbothered by the silence that stretched on after.

  “Let me know when the dumplings are ready,” Ruthie said as she strode out of the kitchen.

  Suffice it to say, dinner was awkward. Dad and Emma kept the small talk up, while Matt interjected with details about whatever was going on in his video game. Ruthie seemed kind of quiet and sullen. I tried to pry as many details from Aunt Em about what she had been doing the last couple of years and what the heck could possibly be in the barn. My every advance was parried by Auntie Em’s practiced nonchalance. I wouldn’t get much out of her with my dad around.

  After dinner, Auntie Em disappeared again. I went to work on my audition. The Beethoven piece was still kicking my ass, and it was too late to switch it to Schubert.

  My phone called out to me on the piano rest. It would be so easy to just give up, and flop down on the couch, and scroll through Rhode Island Social forums or waste time on Intranet video hosting services. I almost succumbed, when I got a text from Aunt Em:

  Claire Kennedy headed down drive

  Then:

  Come find me in barn when you get away

  And not two seconds later:

  Bring workout clothes. Leggings are fine.

  Auntie Em was a triple texter.

  Also, crap. My mom was home.

  Claire Kennedy-Gallagher was just shy of five feet of imposing career woman. She wore suits or athleisure wear equally well, and never seemed to stop moving. Until the end of the day, that is. She flopped down on the living room sofa, and my sister rushed to massage her feet.

  “I’m fine Ruthie,” she said, throwing an arm over her face dramatically.

  “I know,” she replied, “I like doing this.”

  Claire raised her arm just enough to give her eldest daughter an appreciative smile, then settled in.

  I stood from the piano and rushed to get my mother a pillow.

  “Thanks,” Ruthie said in a whisper.

  After thirty minutes of dodging questions from my mom about my Juilliard application performance, I was able to sneak up to my room successfully. Em had said ‘workout clothes.’ I wasn’t totally sure I knew what she meant. So, I wore my workout leggings, threw a sports bra on under my t-shirt, put my hair up, and called it a day.

  From my window, I could hear the crickets chirp, and spy the leaves rustling across the lawn in the wind from the light that spilled from the house. Auntie Em carried some tools from her truck to the barn, stopped midway, and looked up at me. She smiled as if to give me permission to follow her. She had a weird sixth sense like that. Even unintentionally, I’ve never been able to sneak up on her.

  There was something in the back of the truck, something strangely shaped and covered in a plastic tarp. I wish I’d been more curious about it. Maybe I could have averted disaster.

  I waited for my mom to move from the couch back to their room, which didn’t take too long. I waited for the sound of the TV, then crept out the back door and around the house to the barn. Ruth watched me suspiciously, but was apparently feeling generous and didn’t narc on me.

  Making it to the barn, I steeled myself, checked my bun to make sure it was up tight, then reached out for the sliding door. It slid open, seemingly of its own accord.

  “Took you long enough,” Aunt Em said, grabbing me by the hand, and pulling me in.