I don’t think my mother wanted to be a cult leader. I’m not sure they wanted her either, but the guru was ready to retire and my mother had charisma and a living room large enough to accommodate everyone. Her boyfriend at the time was a walk-in: a man so previously sad that his original self had left its body and something else had grabbed the wheel. This new thing was driving the car and sleeping with my mom. I have been sad but never have I actually left my body. My mother has been sadder, but it never made her a poet. I practice my sentences. Sadness is overrated. She did her cult-leading by the book until she finally had her epiphany while cleaning the bathroom: You are where you are. Deal with it. She had her followers practice doing the things they were afraid of, the things they hated, and the things that bored them, in an attempt to overcome their reluctance and their vanity. The goal was acceptance, eventually bliss. They were sad but hopeful. The cult was a place for them, the way church is a place for sinners. For legal reasons she was only a cult leader on the weekends. Tuesday and Thursday nights she held group therapy in the living room while I did my homework in the kitchen. Weekdays she saw clients in her office, which was my bedroom. Damaged people would sit on the couch and unload their emotional problems all over themselves. At night, I would unfold the couch and sleep in it. Some nights I climbed out the window. She didn’t notice. She kept a note taped to the refrigerator door—Surrender your attachments. It seemed like a mandate that self-erased: Keep on struggling to stop your struggling. I don’t think it meant what she thought it meant. I didn’t like the implications.