The Edge of the Sky

Matt

1998

Chapter One

She was late. She was always late. If she left work immediately and if the chrome-and-steel troops on the freeway parted and let her speed right up the middle like a general to the head of his army, and if all the lights on Washington Street saluted her with green, Lana Porter would still be late.

If life was not a battle, why did she so often think of it in military terms?

She slammed her desk drawer shut with her hip, grabbed her purse off the credenza, stopped, turned, and looked for her umbrella. She could not help noticing the contrast between her desk and Jack’s. Battlefield confusion—spreadsheets, order forms, and ledgers spread across hers while his was the Peaceable Kingdom: carefully stacked plant catalogs, design books, the fountain pens he loved and spent too much money on, sketches for the nursery’s expansion (which they could not afford) neatly pinned up on a strip of cork.

And nowhere a red umbrella. She’d have to risk getting wet. And tomorrow she would have to do some serious filing or be buried in bumf. She smiled and thanked her daughters’ English teacher, Ms. Hoffman, for a great new addition to her vocabulary.

As quickly as she stepped from her office at Urban Greenery, she forgot the mess; what had appalled her a moment before became immaterial. The loamy smell of the nursery, the plants’ respiration (which on warm, still nights she felt like breath upon her skin), the comforting predictability of the place, all reminded her to pause and breathe and take her time. Life did not require a battle plan.

Jack said the garden kept her sane—just the kind of thing he would say, sweet but soft around the edges—and if he hadn’t rescued her from the world of credits and debits and two packs a day, she’d be a withered hag by now. And what about him? If it weren’t for her, Jack Porter would still be running a gardening business out of an apartment in Ocean Beach and owing money to half the planet.

But if she asked him where her umbrella was, he’d probably be able to say exactly. And he was never late.

To the west of San Diego the sky over the Pacific was full of clouds, a mountain range on the move; and every wind chime in the nursery sang, announcing that weather was on its way. Twenty meters across an expanse of flats and pony packs of fall seedlings, Jack was talking to Carmino, the nursery manager. Jack had his broad back to her. He was six-feet-five, two hundred and thirty pounds, almost twice the size of Carmino; but, sensitive to the way his height could intimidate shorter men, he leaned against a table of seedlings so he and his manager stood almost eye to eye. Jack’s gunmetal-gray hair grew down over his collar, too long. The shaggy look was part of his appeal, part of what made him still, after almost twenty years, the sexiest man she knew.

Carmino saw her, said something to Jack, and he turned.

And smiled. The wide, embrace-the-world smile that had been the first thing she noticed about him when he was a gardener and she a chain-smoking cocktail waitress keeping the bar books for extra cash.

I’m off, she called across the tables of stock and pansy and snapdragon seedlings which resembled the palette of a giant artist, pinks blending to violets and reds, whites into yellows into greens. See you at home.

I put your umbrella in the car.

He blew her a kiss. She blew one back. Then she was crossing the showroom floor, out the door, and thinking, holy shit, at this rate I’ll be lucky to make it by halftime. It was a Tuesday in October and Beth had a basketball game.

The rain began as Lana turned off I-5 at the Washington Street exit, first spatters and then big, heavy drops that exploded on the oily road. Suddenly there were red-eyed brake lights everywhere and the sound of squealing tires coming and going. On a rainy day in Southern California everyone forgot how to drive. Except natives like Lana who knew what rain did to asphalt that hadn’t tasted rain in six months. The transplanted Easterners, the Windy City expatriates and North Dakota snowbirds were lethal. At Arcadia School she parked in a ten-minute spot in front of the administration offices. For what she and Jack paid in tuition, she dared Grace Mamoulian to tell her to move.

Lana closed her eyes and sat for a moment, listening to the water drum down on the car. The southwestern corner of the continent had been without rain for half a year and the need for it was a hunger her body felt in its pores. She wanted to run in it, tilt her head back and drink it up. Instead she was going to sit in a smelly gymnasium and watch a basketball game. A practice game, at that.

It was not that she did not love Micki and Beth—she was mad about them and crazy about family life. But Jack was the better parent and they both knew it. He could sit through any number of basketball games without wanting to be somewhere else. She knew the games were important . . . and the student art shows and parent-teacher nights and student fund-raisers and field traps. Trips. But it never stopped, this parenting business. How did anyone ever manage it alone?

She had barely closed the car door and Grace Mamoulian, the director of Arcadia School, was on her. Despite the rain, she was groomed as carefully as a cat for show; not a dark brown wisp of hair had the nerve to escape from its chignon.

Lana, so glad you’re here. A predatory smile.

I’m late for the game.

I’ll walk with you.

For a moment the only sound was the Minnie Mouse click-clack of Grace’s high heels on the cement walkway and the rain on the roof that covered it.

I only need a moment, Lana—

It’s Micki, right? It was always Micki.

Maybe the concern on Grace’s flushed face was genuine. She ran a good school and just because Lana did not personally like her . . . Cut her some slack, Lana thought. Jack said Lana had a cynical streak because she suspected people’s motives. But then, he hadn’t grown up with Stella and Stan, the San Diego Steak House Man.

Grace was breathlessly describing an event that had happened that afternoon between fifth and sixth period. I came in late, Lana. I don’t know exactly what transpired and, of course, most witnesses disappeared into their lockers the moment they saw me. But apparently Micki was on one of her tears, mad about something. I never did find out what it was but in the process she threw a pencil at one of the girls. Hit her in the back of the head.

They dashed across a stretch of open lawn for the covered porch outside the gym.

The girl was walking away but if she’d turned . . . Instead of finishing her sentence, Grace raised her elegantly curved eyebrows, a small, regretful smile . . . Did she practice these expressions in front of a mirror at night? Lana leaned against the gym wall and felt the reverberation of pounding feet through her shoulders. If Jack were here he would be diplomatic and cooperative but Lana could barely be bothered. It was only a pencil and the back of the head is hard. The girl might have turned around, but she hadn’t; she had not been blinded or scarred for life.

Besides, kids ganged up on Micki. Somebody must have said or done something to her. You and I both know Micki doesn’t attack people without provocation. Sunlight broke through the clouds and flashed in the rows of windows in the two-story classroom wing across the grass. It’s not fair, Grace. It’s like these kids have a gun they bring out and whack her with whenever they want. I think you should be able to stop this. Have you ever heard the things they say to her?

Now the look was prim and pained. I’ve been told.

Well, if I were Micki, I’d throw something, too. She’s an adopted child—where’s the big deal? There must be other adopted girls at Arcadia.

If other girls flew off the handle the way Micki does, they’d be teased, too.

Micki’s reputation as a wild wire—one of those sparking, crackling lines dropped by the wind, trailing near the ground, daring thrill seekers to grab hold—had trailed her from public school when she entered Arcadia in the sixth grade.

It’s not teasing, Grace. It’s vicious abuse.

Lana heard the beat of the basketball, the pounding of feet, and it occurred to her that sometimes life was going up and down the court, back and forth between the goals, scoring or not; the same moves repeated with endless variations but still, essentially, the same.

When Micki started at Arcadia, she could not sit still in class and on the playground her voice had always been the loudest; jumping up and down, waving her arms, she moved with a frantic eagerness to be included that dismayed Lana. In a game of keep-away she so much wanted the ball thrown to her that kids perversely did not. She could hit a softball out of the field, but team captains never chose her first. She had walked and talked early, run before she was a year old, and bossed the dog around in full sentences before she was two. She was smart and learned quickly but she wore her emotions right out where anyone could see them. Wind Micki Porter up and she’ll cry. Plug her in and she’ll have a tantrum.

Grace Mamoulian had switched the subject and was now talking about how proud she was of Beth for winning the eighth grade I Speak for America prize.

Uh-huh, Lana said.

Trashcan baby, Re-ject, the kids had teased Micki. Passed on from year to year, the grotesque dissing had lost none of its power with repetition.

So what did you do, Grace, about Micki?

Didn’t you hear me? She’s in detention.

Home away from home.

Jack’ll talk to her, Lana said.

He could stay calm and steady under any assault . . . and for sure there would be an assault. Hurt, Micki struck out at the only targets she trusted not to retaliate in kind.

Lana started into the gym and then stopped. "Grace, I know she can’t throw things at people. And we both know if she didn’t react they wouldn’t torment her. But even so, you can’t let those girls off the hook. You need to talk to them. Give them a taste of detention. That’s your job, Grace, and you’re not doing it."

Eat that.

Grace cringed as if she read Lana’s thoughts, and laid her smooth, carefully manicured hand on Lana’s forearm. This will pass, Lana.

That makes it okay?

So long as she doesn’t control herself, Micki will continue to have social problems. She has to change, Lana. You can’t protect her from the real world.

The big Arcadia gym had been a gift from some rich parent many years earlier and had begun to show the wear of constant use. The smells of sweat and socks and adolescent girls had permeated the shining hardwood floor and walls colored a shade Beth called turtle-urine green. Lana found a place on the bleachers a little separate from the other parents. She waved and smiled at several she knew, but she was in no mood to be chatty. Certainly not with Elly Segal, whose daughter had probably led the vulture attack on Micki that day.

Beth played well. At twelve she was the tallest girl on the team. Probably in the whole seventh grade. When Lana was growing up she would have cut off her feet to avoid being five-feet-ten, but Beth strode the world as if it belonged to her. She was so much her father’s daughter, with his wide smile and easygoing, loving nature and what Lana always thought of as a confident core. You could shake Jack but he would not fall. He, too, had been a high school athlete but, unlike Beth, not much of a student. Instead of college he went to Vietnam, and got there just in time to help evacuate Saigon.

At Point Loma High School Lana’s only sport had been running and she had done that on her own, out her front door. She would start out the door of the house on Sunset Cliffs wanting to scream, her intestines twisted around themselves like a bucket of night crawlers. A mile to the beach community of Ocean Beach, then up and over the hill to where she had a view of San Diego Bay and the city and on clear days saw the sunlight flash off the windows of houses and shacks in the Tijuana hills. By the time she got home, the worms had settled down. Lana had been offered a scholarship to American University in Washington, D.C., and she wanted to go because it was the farthest away she could get from her mother and stepfather. But instead she turned it down and attended San Diego State, living at home so she could be there for her little sister.

Jack said the reason Lana found parenting so difficult was that she’d been taking care of Kathryn all her life. She loved him for his insight but it could also make her crazy.

He also said she was a good mother, which she always amended to good enough. And he told her not to feel guilty, which mostly she didn’t despite leaving most of the challenges to Jack. He delivered the lectures, set the standards, taught the heavy lessons, and though he griped occasionally she thought in his heart he liked the power it gave him. Face it—she was no good at those jobs. She had used her entire arsenal defending Kathryn, helping her grow up safely in a house torn by the wars between Stella and Stan and between Stella, Stan, and Mars, her older sister. She had learned a long time ago not to wonder too much what kind of person she might have become if she had gone to AU and left Kathryn to fight her own battles. Or what might have happened to Kathryn.

Thinking about American University reminded Lana that Beth had already begun to talk about a basketball scholarship. From this the logical mental leap was to money and hence to the fact that she had to stop at an ATM on the way home. She took a notebook from her big leather bag and flipped it open to the endless list she kept running. She jotted down ATM and ran a thick line through Beth’s Basketball. Without a list, she would lose the war against time and bumf. She half believed her list held all their lives together. No wonder Jack could be his daughters’ favorite parent. No wonder he could take the time to make a friend of everyone he met. Lana worked most of every day at the nursery, took care of the house and bills, and made sure they had a social life. She visited her mother, held her little sister’s hand, and listened to her big sister grouse about university politics and the general shortage of attractive heterosexual men.

The next time Jack got after Lana for being late, she was going to throw a Micki-fit. It drove Jack mad, the way she couldn’t be ready or arrive on time. Sometimes she made herself late on purpose for the pure pleasure of cracking his irritatingly happy composure.

She and the girls drove home through brief, hard squalls, sunlight alternating with downpour; traffic on Washington was still slow and messy. Lana had driven beyond the last ATM before home when she remembered that she had nothing but moths in her wallet. She turned around, and sped through the empty back streets, half listening to the girls bicker about what had happened at school.

You are so embarrassing, Beth said, turning around in the shotgun seat so she could fix all her outrage on her sister. Her cheeks were bright and shiny as poppies and the hard, sweaty game had brought up a little curl in her straight hair. Why do you act like such a jerk?

In the rearview mirror Lana saw Micki roll her eyes.

What?

You tossed a complete fit, right there in the main hall where everyone in the whole world could see you. Couldn’t you at least wait—

Why don’t you just shut up?

They do it to piss you off. Don’t you get it? Are you so stupid—

Don’t use the ‘s’ word, Lana said.

Beth turned on her. You mean it isn’t stupid the way she lets them get to her that way?

Though a few months younger than her sister, Beth seemed older because she had her father ’s steadiness. Lana looked at Micki huddled in a corner of the back seat. Her birth parents must have been wildcats.

Buckle up, Lana said.

Why should I? Micki threw herself down on the back seat and wailed, So what if I die in a flaming wreck? Who cares?

Do. It. Now.

Beth implored Lana, Why can’t she go to public school? She’s always saying she wants to, so why not let her?

Yeah, you’d love that, wouldn’t you? Micki kicked the back of the passenger seat. Then you could just pretend I don’t even exist. You and your snotty friends . . . Why don’t you ever stick up for me?

I can answer that question, Lana thought as she parked the car in the empty bank lot and ran through the rain to the money machine. Micki on a bombing run: it was her against the world and she didn’t want help and she resented all offers. She was a porcupine crossed with a wildcat, with a whole lot of six-week-old puppy thrown in.

Lana slipped her card into the ATM slot and keyed in her code number, a combination of her daughters’ birth dates. While she waited for her money, she distracted herself from thoughts of Micki by pressing the balls of her feet hard against the ground. This worked to focus her attention down and away from Micki, and generally, the trick worked; but sometimes she pushed so hard her toes curled and her foot cramped. That really got her mind off her troubles.

As she listened to the busy clicks and hums of the ATM making money, she remembered a line from an old musical. Plant a radish, get a radish, not a brussels sprout, That’s why I love vegetables, you know what you’re about.

Vegetables, flowers, weed and pest control, columns of numbers, order forms, and tax documents. These she could handle.

She had been a cocktail waitress with a mediocre degree in accounting when Jack introduced her to the nursery business; back then she did not know a stamen from a staple. But she took to plant work immediately which surprised her until she realized she loved the logic of plants and garden, the calm predictability that was not too different from the fact that two and two would always add up to four. She put a cosmos seed in the ground, watered and fed it, and up popped a flower. Not a rose, not a cyclamen, but a daisy-faced cosmos.

Jack had wanted children; Lana would have been happy to do without, but she never regretted giving him what he wanted. When the girls were small and uncomplicated, caring for them had been a joy. By opening her heart to Micki and Beth, Lana had discovered new regions of herself, continents of love she had not known existed. And their home was nothing like the one she grew up in. The Porters—Jack, Lana, Micki, and Beth—were a happy family in their house on Triesta Way.

The house had been the first Jack and Lana looked at, and they fell in love with it instantly as the Realtor must have known they would. The wide-open, echoey, and light-filled rooms—so much space after living with two babies in the cottage on the nursery grounds! Lana was light-headed from the possibilities.

Lana knew they could not afford this house, the only derelict building in an excellent neighborhood. A flat-roofed, two story, southern California stucco, unpainted for decades, with windows the size of double beds, it sat like a plaster block in the middle of a vast, neglected garden. A sagging front veranda ran the width of the house; across the back was a long, dangerously bouncy, and termite-ridden balcony with a broken railing; the roof of the garage had fallen in.

Lana and Jack had not needed the Realtor’s spiel to convince them this was the house they were meant to live in until they were old and feeble. The girls had been barely crawling and toddling then. All these years later, Lana felt a thrill of gratitude mixed with disbelief when she turned into the driveway beside her home. Her dreams had come true in this house. They were a happy family.

It’s Dad’s and my night out, Beth said, dropping her book bag on the round oak table in the middle of the kitchen. She knelt to smooch Gala, the Irish setter.

Where you going? Lana asked.

Big Bad Cat.

Micki sneered. You guys are so boring. Dad and me are going to ride the roller coaster next week.

Your father hates roller coasters. Actually it was Lana who refused to set foot in one.

He promised, Micki said.

And Jack always kept his promises.

Lana looked at the coats and homework and book bags and raincoats and umbrellas that marked the trail her daughters had taken through the back door, into the kitchen, and up the stairs. She called to them, Don’t leave all your stuff down here. The housekeeper came this morning—let’s try to make it last, okay?

"You leave stuff around," Micki said, vaulting the banister.

I’m the grownup. Lana dug in the cupboard for a dog biscuit and tossed it to Gala.

Damn. She had forgotten to stop at the market, and it had been right there on her list to pick up chicken for dinner. She dropped her purse on the floor and took a pizza from the freezer and set it on the counter. In the crisper there was an unopened bag of lettuce. She checked the pull date and tossed it in the direction of the compost pail.

Micki looked at the pizza box. Pepperoni’s greasy. I’ll get pimples.

No, you won’t. Italians have beautiful skin.

Am I Italian?

Lana turned at the catch in Micki’s voice and realized she had been holding back tears ever since the fight in the school hall.

Oh, my honey, not with those eyes and that hair. Lana made her voice light as she wrapped her arms around Micki. You know why the girls say those things to you. It’s like when someone teases a dog, poking it and poking it so finally it bites. Can’t you just shine it on? Let it roll off your back?

Micki pulled away, a look of indignation on her face. Why should I? I’m not the one who’s doing anything wrong. She grabbed a fistful of hair and tugged so hard, Lana winced. It’s not fair what they say. How would you like it? She made a growling sound and tugged again and again.

Honey, you’ll hurt—

I hate them! Why can’t I go to Balboa High? What’s wrong with public—

There’s nothing wrong with Balboa. Micki, we’ve had this conversation a dozen times. You can’t run away every time something you don’t like happens or makes you unhappy. These things, these . . . challenges, they’re part of growing— Why should Micki be convinced by the tired words when Lana wasn’t? But she did not know how else to respond to her daughter’s pain. Certainly not with the truth that when Micki hurt, Lana hurt right along with her. She might as well be a little girl herself for all the help she was.

The doorbell rang.

Thank god. Saved by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Without pausing to look through the peephole, she opened the door. At first she did not know what they were—just a pair of young people—a man and woman in identical, full-length gray raincoats. Behind them Lana saw a clearing sky and across the street old Mr. Anderson in his dressing gown, sweeping away the leaves that blocked the gutter.

Yes?

Mrs. Porter? Mrs. Jack Porter?

I’m Lana Porter.

She waited for them to say something. Instead they looked at each other and they were too young and new at their jobs to hide their discomfort. A fist clenched in Lana’s insides.

No, she said, speaking only to herself. She shook her head and started to close the door and then didn’t. Gala whimpered and shoved her head under Lana’s hand.

You’re not Lana Porter?

Who is it, Ma? Beth yelled from the top of the stairs.

Lana heard herself say, My husband?

The young woman looked at her partner and her expression drooped with regret. I’m so sorry. . . .

2000

Chapter Two

Jack died and a part of Lana died with him. Just because it was a cliché didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Lana was a refugee afoot in a cratered world. Death and sudden invasion had bombed her homeland out of existence.

She did not forget her daughters but she lost interest in them.

Between the day of the accident in October and Thanksgiving, Lana survived by sleeping her way from one ruined hour to the next, comatose with shock, half blind without the light of Jack’s smile, that beam of light that strangers basked in and the chilly required. And now the widow wept for it and awoke with gummy eyes. All slept out—it had to happen eventually—she lay in bed with her eyes closed, inhabiting a borderless, fogged-in world. She kept the blinds drawn and let the laundry pyramid; dishes of uneaten food piled up on the floor beside her bed.

When she could, her sister Kathryn came by to vacuum and dust; Mars lived in for the first week, paid the bills, fed Gala, and made sure there was toilet paper. The house stank of pepperoni and sausage. The women in Lana’s run-and-read group brought food—salads and vegetable casseroles to balance out the pizza. Joan Lang sent her cleaning lady every Tuesday. Lana’s best friend, Wendy, checked with Carmino daily to make sure Urban Greenery functioned normally; she supervised Beth and Micki’s homework, took them to the movies and to spend the night at her house. Lana presumed Wendy also comforted the girls. She hoped someone did; it was beyond her.

She thought about getting up—knew she should, but didn’t. Micki and Beth fixed their own breakfasts, and must have moved through the house like ghosts. She was able to forget about them for hours at a time. Even Gala stopped barking and larking around the house in her silly setter way, got the message that something had gone very wrong, and from then on slept on Lana’s bed, occupying the foot on Jack’s side. On Thanksgiving Day, Lana stayed home and the girls went to Wendy and Michael’s. The next day, Wendy came upstairs to see Lana, who had wrapped herself in a comforter and moved from her bed to the chaise on the back balcony from where she could see the garden. What a mess it was, all overgrown and weedy after six weeks of neglect. She didn’t want to think about what it would take to put it—and the business—back in order.

What did you do today? Wendy leaned against the balcony railing and her bright persimmon-colored hair caught the light of the midday sun.

You look like a pumpkin, Lana said.

Wendy was breathless and spiky with energy. And mad at me, Lana thought. She had that wound-up look she always got just before she said something she thought was important.

Here comes the lecture.

Did you eat that casserole Susan left you?

I forgot about it, Lana said, and then, I know, I know, this can’t go on.

You’re right about that.

I just need more time. There would never be sufficient time; her heart would never heal. But this was the kind of thing grieving widows said. So she said it.

Have you looked at your girls lately?

Of course she hadn’t. She could not bear to. For weeks she hadn’t looked at anything; that was the point of lying in bed with her eyes closed—or didn’t Wendy get how things were now? Did she have to spell it all out, every vowel and consonant?

Jack had not come home directly that October day. With a pile of packages on the truck seat beside him, he told Carmino he was going to the main post office. He had turned the truck into the intersection at Morena and Tecolote as he had countless times; and at the same moment, a man who happened to be mad at his wife and his boss and the bartender who had just kicked him out of the Harbor Bar skidded his panel truck across two slick lanes of traffic and slammed into the Urban Greenery logo on the driver’s side of Jack’s truck. Before the police got to the scene, Jack was dead.

Micki and Beth are just as miserable as you, Wendy said. Except for them, with you up here sleeping all day, it’s like both their parents died.

I know, I know, Lana thought. But I can’t help it.

I want you to get out of bed and start being a mother again. Your girls need you, Lana. Get up because of them.

This sounds like a bad movie. The one where someone tells the poor widow to live for the sake of her children. And she does and everybody lives happily ever after.

This isn’t a movie, Lana. It’s your life. And theirs. Wendy’s mouth looked stitched together, a seam. I know you feel like you’re dying, but the girls need you to live. So get up and pretend. For them.

It’s too hard.

Then let them up here, let them cry with you, for God’s sake. Grieve together, that’s what families do. It’d be good for all of you.

It would not be good. Lana pulled the comforter up over her head. If she let the girls into her sea of grief they would all drown.

Wendy tugged the comforter down. I’m taking them home with me. I’m moving them into the spare bedroom because they are in danger. She said the last four words as if they were written in six-foot orange neon matching her hair. You can’t do this to them. They’re not eating right. They look like street kids. They’re children, Lana. They need their mother.

In the almost twenty years they had been friends, Lana had never seen Wendy so angry. She pushed away from the balcony, coming to stand only a foot from Lana, her hands spread flat against her thighs. Goddamn it, Lana, stop being so fucking selfish. Her face was bright red as if they’d been running a marathon together. You have a family. Do the right thing.

There is no family. Three people live in this house. And a dog. But that’s not a family. It’s a refugee camp.

Wendy snarled and left, taking the girls home with her for the rest of the weekend. Lana swallowed a sleeping pill and awoke in the middle of the night disoriented, headachy, and restless. She pulled on her old blue cashmere dressing gown, thin and soft as baby hair, and went downstairs barefoot. The silent house blazed with light so she moved through all the rooms, turning off switches until she stood in the dark with Gala pressed hard against her legs. She stood in the dark with nothing to do and then went back to bed.

The Monday after Thanksgiving, Beth stood at Lana’s bedroom door in her school uniform, a tartan skirt and navy blue blazer, and peered into the gloom. Lana saw the frightened wariness in her expression as she said, in her smallest and least-likely-to-offend voice, that there wasn’t any cereal and the bread had grown whiskers.

Go to my purse, Lana said. Take some money and stop at Jack in the Box. She turned her face into her pillow that smelled of bad breath and dirty hair.

The next time Lana awoke she felt sticky. Downstairs a warm winter Santa Ana blew between the slats of blinds that rattled like bones. In her bedroom the sheers billowed like ball gowns. She got up, took a shower, and washed her hair. She stripped the bed and ran a load of wash—not because she wanted to but because her underwear drawer was empty. She put on a jog bra and a long skirt and nothing else. The waist of the skirt dipped below her navel and between it and the band of the bra she saw her ribs for the first time in more than a decade. She went downstairs and forced down a spoonful of peanut butter and a glass of water. The milk was sour. Again or still, she didn’t know which.

The rest of the day she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other: dried and folded the wash, ran the dishwasher and emptied it, opened all the windows and let the Santa Ana rush through the miserable house. In the middle of the afternoon she dressed in Levi’s and a tee shirt and drove to Von’s and spent more than three hundred dollars on groceries, buying whatever took her fancy, from