I’m eating a chicken leg when the lights go out. We wait, but they don’t go back on. I hear banging. It’s Mom stumbling around.
“Ouch! Crap, where did those candles go?”
Something glows.
“Here, use this,” says Rita.
“You have your cellphone? All this time, it’s been in your pocket? I thought we didn’t have reception?” declares Mom.
“We don’t. I just, well, it’s a habit.”
“It’s still charged? Mine is dead by now.”
“I charge it every night.”
“Good grief,” Mom says.
“Found some,” says Mary Beth from under the kitchen island. “Anyone got matches?”
“I have a lighter in my pocket.” Rita digs out her lighter, strikes it, and lights one of the candles.
Mom laughs. “You should have been a Girl Scout.”
“I was.”
“I found flashlights, too,” Mary Beth says.
“Generator,” I say to Mom.
“Ge
