 
##

## The Other Side

### R V Martin

### Copyright 2013 R V Martin

### Smashwords Edition

License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

**Disclaimer** : All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are entirely fictitious.

### Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Dedicated to Glendon. I still miss you like it happened yesterday. I hope you see it all now. And to Stace: for patiently reading every word in this novel more than once. You have a light that is all your own.

Chapter 1

The Oldsmobile passed under the I-10 freeway, breaking up daylight, when its engine began to surge. Lily Hicks put a hand to the dashboard.

"Olds, we have an agreement, remember? I love you, you love me back."

The engine settled into its familiar, straining throb. As Lily wound the window down it jammed open by two inches. A tepid breeze fanned her face as she hummed along to the crackling radio waves. The California sky above was a squint-worthy, stonewash blue. A countable amount of clouds lay long and flat in the air - puddled - discarded ghost costumes.

The engine surged once again. The speedometer lagged. A routine ooze of dread filled Lily's body as traffic behind her set up an impatient chorus of blaring horns. A quick glance at the rear-view mirror showed a young male motorist flipping the bird at her.

Stores along Pico Boulevard began to pass more slowly as Lily worked the gas pedal. The engine went suddenly silent and Lily scanned the road for a free parking space. She coasted to the curb. Climbing from the defeated car, Lily set off down the street. She passed a cake shop and a wig store, exotic pet imports, an art gallery and Pico Dental when her ears caught the sound of a masculine voice cutting above street noise. The man was only meters beyond her destination, Every Witch Way.

"-Might think it's a little old-fashioned, preaching on the street..." he called to passersby. The man looked to be in his early forties; intelligent: kind. An African-American girl sat on a crate beside him with a stack of leaflets in her lap, handing them out to anyone who would accept.

At the front of the pagan supplies store Every Witch Way, Suzannah Fry sat on a park bench smoking. She had a tidy, compact figure and wore all-black clothing. Her wrists were weighted with copper jewellery and her lips showed crayon red; her crow-black hair swept at an intriguing angle over one eye. She registered only minimal surprise when Lily took a seat beside her.

"Hey," she said. "Your baby broke down again?"

Lily pecked Suzannah's cheek with a kiss. " _And_ I left my cell phone at work. Can I use the shop phone?"

"Course."

Lily nudged her friend in the side, nodding toward the preacher. "Who's the guy?"

Suzannah hooked her fingers for quotation marks. " 'Andy.' "

The man's voice was inescapable, and Lily put her quest on hold to listen to him.

"Trust me; I used to hate street preachers. Anyone who even smelled of Christian persuasion and they were on my black list..."

Suzannah blew smoke in the preacher's direction, muttering, "Today is the first time I ever regretted being a smoker."

Lily glanced at the collection of cigarette butts on the pavement around Suzannah's boots.

Suzannah caught her friend's stare and gave a husky laugh. "Hey, my faith is valid to me, okay? No one, and especially no one called Andy, is going to change that. I can't believe you grew up around this stuff. All love to your parents, Lil, but the smartest thing you ever did was ditch the Christian scene. C'mon. Jesus saved the world? Hella job he did."

Lily shrugged, leaning back. The evangelist's message pushed higher and louder still, forcing a lull in their conversation.

"Meeting God does not mean that everything bad in your life disappears, or that you transform into some ultra-person. There are things in your life that remain unchanged, and unchangeable: a disability, for example, or a dissolved marriage. And if I were here to do a sales pitch about Christianity I'd say that my problem with alcohol has gone. But, the truth is that I pray and I struggle. And, sometimes I drink."

Suzannah made a contemptuous noise. "Christianity is for people who are too scared to try anything real. They're not offering anything like what I've got."

Lily chewed the inside of her cheek. "So, what have you got?"

Suzannah arched her eyebrows. She lit another cigarette, cupping the lighter flame.

Lily shook her head quickly. "I'm not being contentious. I'm asking."

"What have I got? Control over my own life, for one thing. No strings attached. It seems to me everything a Christian does is motivated by guilt or some form of duty."

Lily took in at the preacher and the African-American girl sitting on her crate. "They don't look so guilty to me. Put it this way. Did you choose Wicca, or were you led into it?"

Suzannah squinted, her icy blue irises on full wattage. "My mother didn't 'lead' me into anything. She opened my eyes to the only truth that exists: the deity within us. How can that be perceived as wrong? And, yes, that was a rhetorical question. I wasn't any more brainwashed than you were, Lil. I made a conscious choice to embrace my faith, and you made a conscious choice to ditch yours."

"Okay. I'm just saying that from where I sit, your upbringing hasn't exactly made you open-minded about Christianity. So, I'll take your spiritual guidance with a grain of salt," Lily smiled. She checked her watch. "I should go. Can I use the phone?"

They both stood and Suzannah indicated over her shoulder, cigarette smoke curling from one nostril like a dirty gymnast ribbon. "That 'freedom' you think you see in them? You make it up as you go in life. And, anyway, you only need to look at what happened with Danny to know that Christianity is just a bullshit placebo."

She planed her hands, making the cigarette bounce when she spoke. "Bullshit."

_Danny_ \- the dormant place.

"He was scared of dying," she murmured. "Who wouldn't be scared, especially at fifteen? C'mon."

"He had cancer. He was always going to die," Suzannah said, frankly. "It was the thought of the afterlife that freaked him out. You're the one who told me! You were there with him at the end. He had fear written all over him, like Heaven was about as feasible as the existence of Santa Clause."

#  

Curtis Sloane followed Lily as they made their way through the busy Santa Monica farmers market. He felt like a private detective, catching the odd word as his partner chatted with vendors, all five-foot-nine of elegance with a pair of aviator sunglasses settled on her head.

California sunshine invited itself everywhere. Nearby, a teenage boy was busking on a saxophone. A dance of people went by on roller blades. A few paunchy holidaymakers turned produce in their hands, sporting neon colored visors and wearing half-buttoned shirts. As if they had something worth displaying.

At the next stall Lily stopped by, the woman who tended it was Chinese. Lily attempted the Chinese greeting she had learned during the previous market visit and finished by laughing at herself and giving one earlobe a self-conscious tweak. There she was, with dimples and no makeup and having nothing to hide; so un-Los Angeles, the city of superficial angels.

That's her appeal, Curtis thought. She has no idea that she is appealing.

Admittedly, Lily's build was only average. He had had girlfriends much slimmer. Above all, what drew him like a moth to the flame was Lily's implicit faith in him; to lead, to protect, and to know best: the look in her eyes that said wherever she followed him, she would be safe.

Their friends could never understand their relational peace. He realized that, on paper, his and Lily's relationship was based on a strange polarity that shouldn't have worked: Lily employed as a special needs carer and training to become a teacher while he himself worked in the fitness industry. Yet, somehow, it had never been an issue. There had always been questions, and envious probing from friends: You really don't fight about this or that? And they owned it proudly; that their relationship really was how it appeared to be.

The only sizable arguments they had had during their twelve-year relationship involved money. Adopted by a couple from the war generation, Lily held to the rule 'spend a little, save a little': whereas Curtis believed that money existed to be spent. He'd curbed his spending habits long enough to go halves with Lily on the down payment of their first home. Lily was so proud that he'd managed it. And, he liked the way he looked - in her eyes.

Shopping stowed in the Honda RX8, a smile held onto Lily's mouth as she chatted from the passenger seat. "Do you remember that girl from last year who cornered you at the spring formal? She saw me putting up your personal trainer fliers on campus yesterday and she goes, 'How personal does his training get?' "

Curtis sent the shift into second gear. "That's the point where you scratched out my cell-phone number, right?"

# Lily

Lily appraised him with a lingering sweep of her eyes, taking in his natural tan and his brown hair flecked blonde by the sun. He had cheese-cutter cheekbones and a rogue's twist of his lips when he smiled. Lily knew the effect that Curtis's smile had on people. She had witnessed it countless times. His smile made something of them; as if, simply by virtue of having gained his smile in reaction, that individual's own popularity had increased.

"I almost scratched the number," she admitted. "I know you have to beat them back with sticks, but you may have to resort to using small trees soon."

Curtis grinned, switching lanes with a duck of his eyes at the rear-view mirror. "Hey, I forgot to tell you, the mechanic rang first thing this morning. Your car will be ready for pickup tomorrow. I told the guy there was an extra fifty bucks in it for him if he did a lax job. I know it was a sweet sixteenth present from your Dad, Lil, but it's time that car went to a better place."

He adjusted the air conditioning. There was a protracted silence and he glanced across at Lily. She stared out of the passenger window with her chin in her hand.

"I was kidding," he said.

Lily turned and touched Curtis's thigh. "Oh, no, I'm not being like that. When you said 'a better place' it reminded me of yesterday. When I went to Suz's shop, a guy was street preaching there."

She paused, her eyebrows flinching downward. "It was weird. It was interesting which is why it was weird. I haven't thought about any of that stuff - religious stuff - since..."

# Curtis

As Curtis slowed the RX8 for an intersection, he watched his partner's face. It left a sudden, airy gap in his throat, hearing things that he had never heard Lily speak before. He peeled his fingers one at a time off the steering wheel in a miniature Mexican wave and rested each one down again. Religion? He thought. 'Since'? Since when?

Their eyes met. Lily developed a kind of frown-smile. "What?"

Curtis shrugged one shoulder. "I was just listening."

There was relative quiet in the car on the drive to Palms: a quiet that was unfamiliar to Curtis and one he felt unsure of breaching. Endless look-alike apartment blocks rolled by in the middle-income suburb of Palms, as if the earth itself had shaken up pieces from a real estate board game and decided glamorous upgrades were unnecessary. Gone were the pre-war era homes in favor of duplexes and triplexes, with few backyards and little or no distinguishing features to tell the buildings apart. The condos and apartments soon thinned out to make way for family homes.

Curtis kept his eyes on the sway of Lily's back-length brown hair as they climbed the front steps of the Carson's two-storeyed home. He tolerated the Carson family for Lily's sake. He figured that it was a similar equation for the Carson's, in return.

Lily carried a bag of market produce in one hand and a boxed gift in the other. The front door had been left ajar in expectation of their arrival and they walked the long, yolk-colored hallway to the kitchen. Bubbling sounded from the stovetop.

When they entered the kitchen, Grace was trying the lid of a jar, which she handed to her biological daughter, Dana, saying, "Your wrists are younger than mine."

A chorus of greetings mingled and Grace approached. She was tall and effortlessly attractive, her hair a pale honey color: either entirely natural or entirely from a bottle, Curtis had never settled on which. Either way, time had been kind to Grace Carson. Her heyday was not hard to imagine.

"Oh, good, you brought the vegetables," she said, taking the bag from Lily and delivering a kiss. "You two want something to drink? Curtis?"

"Anything alcoholic would be great."

Grace sent him a smile. "Not all Episcopalians drink, you know."

"Sorry." Curtis nodded, closing his eyes in feigned prayer. "Dear God, lay it on their hearts to start buying beer. Amen."

It was a patter they had worked out years before, and they all laughed at the joke like it wasn't old. It was his one effort at fitting in, and Lily's eyes hung onto him, full and bright, singling him out.

Dana handed the opened jar to her mother. She looked like a brunette from a clothing catalogue: possessing a pleasant face under perfectly kept eyebrows. She wore dress pants and a crisp white blouse as if she had just been excused from a business meeting.

Lily neared her sister and extended the gift from behind her back. "It's not much, but happy birthday."

She crossed her arms, leaning on them somehow. "Seems like we're closing the five year gap between us, you know? You want so badly to grow up and suddenly you realise it's not just other people that get older."

She laughed, giving a geeky little intake of breath at the corners of her mouth. Dana nodded, tapping the gift. "I - thanks for this - I never did buy into the whole anti-aging culture, though, so being thirty-three isn't the end of the world."

Lily was smiling with the remains of her previous smile, and she perked it up with the push of a point being missed. Looking on, Curtis thought, it's like the air between the two sisters holds permission, but Lily has never managed to locate it.

He soon withdrew to the living room. They were old fashioned that way, women-only in the kitchen. He received a perfunctory nod from Lily's father, Beau, and found himself a gardening magazine to read. Beau poured over a crossword book. To his left, Dana's five year old daughter was dangling her doll inside a vase and chatting to herself.

Curtis glanced up from an article on hot-house vegetation as Dana's husband entered the room from the hallway. He could predict what he and Phillip Elderman would talk about. It was the same every time: convivial, a duty. We're still in the same jobs. Our respective sports teams are on-form. Today's lunch will set us up for a week.

Time wore on and Lily eventually slipped into the room. She perched on the arm of her father's chair as Beau ran his index finger down the crossword page.

"Montana," Lily said softly to her father. "Thirty-seven down. It's Montana."

Beau filled in the squares with a thin-skinned hand, blue veins standing out the size of earthworms. "I should know my geography better, shouldn't I?"

Lily leaned in and kissed her father's cheek. Looking on, Curtis knew that every time Lily kissed Beau, she kissed him to bring him back. The Alzheimer's was slowly becoming more noticeable. It was one of the few things that made Lily cry.

Lunchtime presently came and went. Everyone gathered in the living room to eat birthday cake. Curtis had a slice with the blue icing letters birt on it. Megan sat beside him, her five-year-old legs no longer than the sofa squabs. She addressed him repeatedly with, "Knock, knock!"

I should have mastered a way of not being annoyed by this, Curtis thought, sending his partner a quick, harassed smile.

Lily put down her plate and called out, "Meg! Scoot over here, baby. I feel like braiding your hair."

Grace and Dana had a photo album shared between their laps. Beau frequently looked up from his crossword book, saying, "What's another word for...?"

Lily sat on the floor, her head resting back on her mother's thigh while she braided Megan's hair. Curtis didn't know what he felt, witnessing those casual acts of devotion, so different to the culture of his own family.

Lily was staring at the framed needlework on the wall above the television. It had been there for as long as Curtis could remember: birds with ribbons in their beaks at the cross-stitched corners and the central words, Thou keepest him in perfect peace whose mind stayeth on Thee. He knew that Lily had something like a black book in her head. She felt that she owed these people everything.

Curtis didn't like it, the sheer depth of it. And he'd found that he couldn't change it.

# L

Lily caught her partner's stare. The same look he had in the car, she thought. What is that?

The memories came flooding back at the sight of the old cross-stitch on the wall: memories of singing 'Father Abraham Had Many Sons' in Sunday School and of wearing a sticky-tape beard as one of the three wise men in the nativity play.

But... that was then. She smiled at Curtis and looked over her shoulder at the photo album on Grace's lap. There was a huge section in it that had nothing to do with her memories. Then, it happened on one page: her chubby three-year-old self suddenly posing along with the Carson family. It made her feel warm and yet, somehow, still estranged.

She saw a small, tea-stain colored photograph of two women tucked into the binding of the album, and she turned to face her mother with the nickname on her lips that had been a lifeline all those years ago. "Nanny Grace, who are they? I've never seen that photo before."

Dana and Grace exchanged the barest glance. Grace pointed out the older woman. "Uh, this is Betty, a friend of mine from my early nursing days in Pasadena. And, this..." she paused, a finger hovering over the second face, "This is her daughter, Alexis."

Lily lifted a hand for the photo. She let her eyes trace the shadows and the sunshine in both faces, rubbing a pensive finger along her lower lip. "Did I ever meet Alexis?"

"No, honey, you didn't," Grace said.

"Her face is kind of familiar to me. I just can't place it."

Grace closed the album, saying nothing further. Lily bunched her lips dubiously to one side, and she craned to address her sister. "Did you know them?"

Dana simply shook her head.

Afternoon dimmed into early evening and the family gradually disbanded until Grace and Beau sat alone in lamplight. They faced one another over a chessboard.

"I'm pretty sure that lasagne was the best you've ever made," Beau said, moving his remaining knight.

"Good," Grace smiled. "By the way, did I see Lily doling out your medication before she left?"

"Mm, she did." Beau gazed at the collection of photo frames on the facing wall. "Who would have thought that she and Dana would come to look so alike, not even being related? Never ceases to amaze me."

"The ladies were saying the same thing during Bible study, yesterday," Grace said. She used her pawn to take Beau's bishop and set the piece down by her elbow in its slow-growing pile of victory. "You're up."

"Gracie, she's getting more and more like Alexis."

Grace absently pressed her fingertip to the bishop's plastic mitre. "I know."

"Someday soon, it'll be more than the photograph she wants to know about."

"Well, honey, what? Could you do it?" She shook her head. "It would fall to me as her mother and I'm telling you right now, I simply cannot do it."

The living room was swallowed by a spell of silence. Beau made a castling move. "She thinks it seems ungrateful to ask," he said, quietly. "She should be told about the arrangement, and she should be told someday soon. That's my opinion."

Grace frowned into the well of her hand. Her Queen couldn't be spared either way.

She lapsed back in her armchair, saying, "Honey, if we gave Lily even a part of the picture she'd want the whole of it, and rightly so. Now... while we usually find middle ground about the children, this point stays. Lily will never know about the arrangement. I don't think either of us could imagine the complete damage to Lily if she found out what makes up her DNA."

Chapter 2

Curtis opened an envelope with the tip of his keys and made his way, reading, into the house. Boxes were scattered around the hardwood floor entrance. Styrofoam cubes crunched beneath his shoes. He heard a voice coming from the master bedroom and he followed it to find Lily splayed on the master bed, the phone to her ear. Their eyes met: blue and brown celebrating.

"So, we thought Wednesday," Lily was saying. Curtis stripped off his jacket and moved onto the bed. Lily pulled the phone away from her mouth to kiss him. "Wednesday for the house warming, right?"

Curtis nodded and settled on his haunches to read the mail.

# L

Lily watched as Curtis reached the last envelope in the pile. He stared at it for a moment and dropped it, cupped one hand around the other and popped one of his knuckles.

Knuckle cracking. Bad sign, she thought, and said into the phone, "I'll have to call you back. Okay, bye."

She tossed the phone aside and reached out to claim Curtis's face, drawing a kiss from him. There was a definite flatness to it from his side. He scuffed a hand through his brown-blonde hair.

"Guess who has started getting Mom to write the address?" he said. "Like that makes it easier to read."

"I'll never understand why they won't hold your furniture for free. They're your parents! And they don't even use the third garage."

"Well... when did you expect Gary to start giving hand-outs? Or for me to start accepting them, for that matter?"

It had been that way for as long as Lily had known her partner, his referring to his father as 'Gary' and never as 'Dad'.

"I only agreed to store it there when Mom offered it free of charge," he said. "But you know how it is when Gary gets wind of something that could make him some green. I could send it all to commercial storage..."

"But, your accounts read like a sinking ship," Lily said. "I guess it could be worse. He could be charging a lot more."

"I'll let you look on the positive side, I'm way past it," he said.

Watching him closely, Lily said, "Hey," and the word was a gentle summons. Curtis leaned in. They kissed slowly, hands holding faces, and their bodies folding back onto the pillows. It was some time before Curtis broke the kissing, propping himself on one elbow.

Lily said, "I handed in my paper for 'Stigma and Society' today."

"Oh, that's the lecturer who sends you into overtime with the nail biting?"

"Right. But!" Lily hoisted one thumb, showing a miniscule growth of nail. "Check this bad boy out."

# C

He watched Lily, her dimples breaking out like small caves, and he wanted to keep them going. "I got the pay rise," he said.

Lily frowned at him, moving her head backward like she was finding a different way to see him. "What? No way. Babe, that's just..."

They joined hands in the air, their fingers forming a row of X's and Curtis was about to speak when the bedside phone rang. He rolled his eyes and fell back on the pillows like a man slain. Lily slipped across the bed to answer it. As she chatted, Curtis moved closer to her and began a kissing trail down the pillar of her neck.

After she hung up, she pegged his shirt between finger and thumb, saying, "What am I going to do with you?"

"I've got a few ideas, now you mention it," he mumbled against her throat. "Christen the bedroom, shall we?"

# L

Her partner was smiling playfully, bearing down on his palms. She hated killing the moment.

"Um, that was Nanny Grace. She sprained her wrist handling boxes trying to set up for the yard sale tomorrow."

Curtis sobered instantly. He moved back.

"I'll be two hours max," Lily promised. "I'll be back in time to make dinner. And unplug the phone."

She tugged at her partner's shirt, drawing him back. "C'mon. The sooner I go, the sooner I come back. Okay?" She kissed him again, that delicious, almost paper-tearing sound of a solid kiss. "Meanwhile, how about this christening?"

Relinquishing the grudge, Curtis lowered his face into Lily's neck and he began to pepper her skin with kisses as she made her limbs a nest around him. When the phone rang again, Curtis froze where he was, just short of Lily's face. She didn't move. The ringing sounded for five tones and the fax mechanism cut in.

Lily frowned at her partner. She sat up and they leaned across simultaneously to watch a piece of paper shuffle into the room. Curtis peered over Lily's shoulder and they both read:

Santa Monica Community Church

1300 Arizona Ave. Sunday mornings 10am

\- All welcome -

Found this slipped under the shop door. 'Andy' I presume. Smart-ass! Did he somehow miss the store's Wiccan symbolism? Suz x

#  

Lily found her mother seated at the kitchen table, obscured beyond cardboard boxes. Grace was holding an ice pack against her wrist. They hugged one another and Lily crouched, peeking beneath the ice pack.

"Nanny Grace, it's pretty swollen," she said. "I'll take you to a duty doctor."

"No, no," Grace said, with the measured calm of an ex-triage nurse. "The aspirin will kick in soon. What I do want you to do is take those last three boxes to the garage. And, the biggest one there is yours. Take it with you when you go."

Lily made her way to the largest box on the table. She folded back the cardboard flaps and found history everywhere inside.

"Oh my God," she said, reaching in. Her hand emerged with a shoebox, the word photos scribbled on the box lid. She went to where Grace sat and popped the top so that they could begin individual searches through the glossy selection.

Not far into her own search, Lily held up a photograph. "Me and Suz in the hot air balloon. She puked afterwards and made me pinkie-swear not to tell."

"How is she these days? Oh, honey. Look." Grace displayed the photograph for Lily. There were three teens in the photograph: Suzannah with her heavy mascara staring down the barrel of the camera with thinly veiled suspicion, Danny caught in mid-laugh, and Lily holding her fingers in a V behind Danny's head. It was a full minute before Lily spoke.

"There is no... possible reason why it should have happened."

She got to her feet, returning to the far end of the table. She rummaged inside and found a red slinky sitting on a stack of old diaries. Extracting it, she stood and bounced it absently between her palms.

"Nanny Grace," she began, with hesitation, "Do you think with some things you can just know?"

"With what things exactly?"

"With-with God, I guess."

"Well, I think there will always be doubt in the human mind because it's like the prophet, Isaiah, said: 'As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.' "

Grace paused, momentarily. "Still, while that's the case, I do believe it's possible to know the infinite love behind God's ways, even if we don't understand His actual ways. Does that answer the question?"

Lily retraced to her chair and sat. She nodded and brought her eyes gradually, significantly, to her mother. "I was raised to believe in God's goodness, but when Danny passed, the anger seemed pretty reasonable."

"And, neither God nor I would expect you to feel otherwise, sweetheart," Grace agreed. "The problem lay in the fact that from that day to this, you stopped letting yourself ask questions. You can have advice or you can have a shoulder to cry on. Just tell me how much of this questioning is rhetorical."

"Lately, none of it," Lily admitted, tucking her hair behind her ears. "After you've accepted something as true, like God's goodness, and then doubt it, is it up to us? Or up to God to prove it?"

She asked this with palms upward in her lap, flowers needing rain.

Grace stared off thoughtfully. "The question of who is responsible for what, in terms of faith... I think it's halved. God says in His word that if we seek Him, He will allow Himself to be found."

Lily slipped one hand under the veil of her hair and rested it at the nape of her neck. "Another thing. Take Curtis for example. Sure, he knows things about me; like the Pier is my favourite place to go and that I'm addicted to marshmallows. But, he has no clue about who I've been; nothing about Danny or God." She shook her head. "And does that actually matter?"

Grace shifted the ice pack on her damaged wrist. Water ran down her skin and under the barrel of her arm as the pack defrosted. "It obviously mattered enough for you to bring it up with me, here, today. To my mind, the question is more: 'If rediscovering a connection with God does matter, then what am I willing to change in my life to accomplish that?' "

Lily held her elbows with her hands. "Is it worth it to you, Nanny Grace? Worth believing this whole 'God-has-a-plan' thing, even though you don't understand the plan yourself?"

"Well, you'd need to ask yourself if that's the right motivation to do - anything; because it's 'worth it'. It's unfortunate that that sentiment has become so ingrained in Western culture, and even Western spirituality. If it doesn't gratify in some regard, it isn't worth the investment."

"But, I do believe in the spiritual realm period," Lily stated. "I mean I grew up seeing things happen in Suzannah's house that we as humans weren't doing."

Grace continued with evident concern. "Ultimately this is your call, honey. I can only encourage you to think about it: life with God, and life without Him. And most importantly, what satisfaction you gain if you do not allow yourself to question it at all."

#  

We live in a culture that is accustomed to things happening instantly.

The cursor blinked, waiting for more to do. Matt Livingston scratched his jaw and swivelled in his office chair for an outside view. The working bee was well underway, with people of all ages and backgrounds laying paintbrushes to the church exterior. They did it, for free. They did it for as long as it took.

Matt refocused on the computer and clacked out another line on the keyboard. According to such thinking, when a person commits to life as a Christian, then all the change that is going to happen happens immediately. In fact, nothing is further from the truth.

A voice sounded from the doorway. "It's worth it just for the pizza shout."

Matt raised his head. A dark skinned girl stood in the doorway in dungarees, holding a paintbrush. Matt hooked an arm in the air. "Mere! My perfect excuse for a break."

Merrin's smile was a shaft of light amongst the bookshelves and potted palms. "I gotta ask you something."

"For the last time, I'm not shaving my head for Jason's mission trip," Matt said.

Merrin grinned and shook her head, taking a chair. She stared at the plaque on the edge of the desk, sobering, seeming to double check that she was in the best possible place to reveal her thoughts.

Matt felt the responsibility on his side of the plaque that read Young Adult Director. It had been his for five years, filling every hour of his life with new challenges, new commitments and new sacrifices. Merrin Franklin had found the softest place in his affections. He saw the things that had been hardest on her: the things that sat in her eyes.

"What's up?" he asked. "Everything okay at the hostel?"

Merrin crossed her legs, balancing the paintbrush on her kneecap. "I'm cold," she confessed. "I don't mean need-a-sweater cold. I mean spiritually. I went with Andy to street-share last week. He's totally cut out for it."

"And you?"

Merrin shrugged. "The thing is I know what I believe. But, I can't prove it to people! I hand out fliers even though I know most of them are going to wind up in the trash. People want hard facts. They want something they can inject into their life as quick as Botox. I can't always answer on the spot and I even stammer sometimes. I just think God needs a new rep, is all."

Matt got to his feet and dragged his chair sideways so that he wasn't sitting behind the desk. He settled elbows on knees. "Look, if you don't feel happy street sharing, there's absolutely no pressure, okay? Andy just wanted to give you the chance to-"

"-No, I know, and it was nice. I just want to know what you think. Whether or not I'm good at sharing, how much does all this matter in the end?"

"Okay, well... I think that human beings have pretty definite ideas of what success means. We compare ourselves with others a lot. And, sometimes it's almost impossible for us to see God in a totally different light - God, who offers love that never changes. We wait for Him to take it back or to stick rules to it, when... the fact is, Mere, there is no such thing as a perfect Christian. We can't be. And, it's not what God wants us to try to be. There's only one thing I can guarantee He wants from us. And that is willingness. The rest is His job."

Merrin watched Matt intently as he went on.

"Just look at all the people in the Bible who God called on for specific work. So many of them copped out, or screwed up or 'passed the buck'. And still, God continued to work His purpose through them."

"How about Moses?" Merrin asked, a gradual dawn in her voice. "Jonah, too."

"Exactly. And King David, a married man who had an affair with Bathsheba. David acknowledged his sin before God and there were real consequences - yet the lineage of Jesus Christ was brought about through David and Bathsheba's line."

Matt kept his eyes where they were, dead set on Merrin's. "Honestly? That is the hope we have. That God works through our mistakes, not around them."

Merrin spent a moment considering this. "I... yeah, okay. I'll think about what you've said."

"And take it before God, too," Matt encouraged. "Christ came to earth to die an excruciating death for people who - still \- don't believe in Him. He can definitely handle hearing from us when we're mad."

#  

Hot water tumbled onto bath salts, a steaming prophecy of comfort. Lily lit three candles on the vanity unit and fixed her hair in a knot, humming along to the song that sounded from the living room stereo.

She picked up her glass of red wine. Beside it, there was an old diary she had plucked from the storage box, and beside that, the note she had found tacked to the front door when she arrived home from work. Rory's gng 2 buy nu wheels & wants 2nd opinion, bk @ 10 \- Curtis.

Lily was soon drifting in bubbles and she opened the diary to a random page. Danny's name jumped out almost everywhere she looked.

Danny is the kind of guy everybody wants to be friends with...

A friend of Danny's took him to a church meeting, last night. Danny just rang me, so excited. 'I gave my heart to God, Lil. And it's true what they say - this feeling like it's the first day you ever lived.'

Lily took a sip of wine. She skimmed forward several pages.

He loves his comic book heroes. Yesterday, he joked that he'd acquired a new superpower; the hospital lights gleamed so strongly off his bald head that he can blind his enemies.

She flurried several pages ahead, her eyes rimmed with remembrance tears.

Tonight he said hi. That was all. He held onto my hand so hard that all my fingers went white. He kept watching the ceiling and he said in a whisper, "You're supposed to see angels and light. I don't see it. God wouldn't just leave me, would He?"

But, the thing is, lately I don't know enough about God to vouch for him. Still, I want to make it easier for Danny. So, I say, "No, he wouldn't just leave you."

But, I don't believe that - when Danny starts gasping like a fish. And I will never believe that, when he dies right in front of me.

A movement in the doorway caught Lily's eye. Curtis stood there, a beer bottle in-hand.

"God!" Lily exclaimed, slipping a hand over her heart. But, the words were suddenly not just an empty exclamation so that when Curtis smiled, it took Lily a second to follow suit. "Did your brother buy a car?" she asked.

# C

Curtis crossed over to the bath and hunkered down. They kissed hello. He plucked the diary from Lily's fingers, saying, "Nah, he's caught between two choices. What's this 'Danny' name written everywhere? I thought I was your first boyfriend. Oh, wait. Here I am."

He grinned and held the diary higher as Lily tried to reclaim it. He read aloud, making his pitch falsetto to imitate a woman's voice.

"It's Suzannah's sweet sixteenth tonight and she's determined to find me a date. She got all serious and said, 'Lil, you're not on steroids any more. Guys are going to see you differently."

Curtis glanced at Lily, his tone returned to normal. "Steroids?"

"For my asthma, growing up. I needed a lot. Think - footballer." She smiled with her eyes sidelong on the diary. "But, just leave that. Tell me about your day."

Curtis continued reading aloud. "And it happened, about an hour into the party, the type who never looks at me, but he did! I didn't realize eyes were made that blue. Suz says he's a friend of a friend, someone who she views with implicit suspicion cos he's a little too sure of himself. He walked up and said (to me!!), "Hi, I'm Curtis" when I had just filled my lungs with helium. I said in this hyper-squirrel voice, "I'm...supposed to be embarrassed! But, I'm having too much fun."

Curtis divorced his eyes from the page. Lily's cheeks were the color of embarrassment. He reached out, thumbing liquid from her dark eyelashes.

I remember seeing you that night, he thought, with your summer legs and your innocence...

"At that party," he said, "I asked you if you wanted a drink. You said Suzannah wanted one, too, like I was a waiter or something. You just didn't - get \- the flirting."

Lily tipped her head and smiled, leaning in. "Yeah, well, I got the gist pretty quick."

They kissed in warm, lingering snatches and Lily sank amongst the suds again. Curtis leafed through the diary pages.

Years back, he had learned this girl: her love for children and nature and traditions, how cautious she was with decision making, how she hated pretension, and how firm her belief was that people were inherently good. Yet within one evening, he had glimpsed Lily's past and recognized none of it. In response, he reached for his nearest weapon: sarcasm.

"You obviously never got art lessons. What's this cartoon face you drew?"

Lily bugged eyes at him. "You're just all charm tonight. Oh, that. It's my tribute to Dana's dog, Monday. He was hit by a car."

Her eyes roamed the bathroom tiles. "When we buried him I asked Nanny Grace, 'Has Monday gone to a happier place?' And she said, 'sweetheart, I couldn't really say'."

"Wow," Curtis said, in understatement. "Way to kill a kid's dreams."

"I guess... but, no, I think she was teaching me to be realistic. She was saying that horrible things happen and you can't just pretend that they don't by creating some comforting fantasy."

Curtis shrugged. "So, I'll buy you another dog. You can call him Tuesday."

There they were, the defence mechanisms in him that Lily was only just getting to know. She stared at the bath water and broke the silence. "Are we saying what we really want to say, here? It was in your face the other day."

"What was?"

"This complete aversion to anything that sounds religious."

Curtis took a draught of beer, arranging himself cross-legged on the bathroom tiles.

Lily said, "I don't want this to be confrontational."

"Fine. So, let's just drop it."

"I can't." She smiled at him in a confused way, tipping her head. "Years ago, my best friend died of cancer, okay? And right before he died, he doubted that God actually cared about him. I figured there must be some honesty that you find when you're dying: the lifting of some blindness that living gives us. Thing is I've realized? I wanted to believe that God ditched him."

Lily watched her own feet at the end of the tub rising above the foam, and sinking again out of sight. "That kind of anger is easier; way easier than questioning. But, this end of it is just so hollow." She nodded, seriously, at her partner. "And, the questions are still there. If you got the chance to have something clarified, wouldn't you take it?"

"No." Curtis used his thumb to flick the beer bottle cap into the air, coin toss style. "I live like there's nobody watching. That's freedom."

"That's solitude," Lily said. "So, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if you want to change anything in life, it's all down to you. That's the only reality."

# L

Lily felt a little cold, then, despite the hot water. "So, you're-"

"I'm an atheist," Curtis said.

Lily blanched. "What? But... I doubt God's goodness, not His actual existence."

"Lil, c'mon. The closest you came to religion for the last twelve years was saying God instead of gosh."

Water dripped from the hot bath faucet, the only sound. Plip.

Lily shook her head. "Still. It's a big thing not to know about someone."

"Or, it's nothing. Depends on how you see it."

Lily looked up, swiftly. "So, that's your permission for me to go ahead with this?"

Curtis set his beer down and climbed to his feet. "Look, whatever," he muttered. "I've just spent fourteen hours on my feet. I'm in no position to judge."

Lily swallowed and did something that she did not feel like doing. She gave a half-smile, and said, "What position do you have to be in to judge?"

She struck a pose, The Thinker. "Like this?"

# C

Curtis laughed, still irked. "Idiot."

She drew the laugh from him. She always can, he thought.

Still, the tension lingered - the first of its size between them without the issue being one of finance. Lily's smile didn't last. She trailed one elegant finger along the edge of the tub.

And Curtis was surprised to feel tears crown his eyes. The thought hit him: We've just lost something.

Chapter 3

Lily's class in English literature was drawing to a close. Professor Mimi Lombard read from a book of Shakespearean verse and the last line took up residence in Lily's mind like a lost spirit. "This thought is as a death, which cannot choose; but weep to have that which it fears to lose."

Student chairs were scraped back and sentences wrangled in the air as Mimi closed the book. Raising her voice, the lecturer said, "Just a reminder that tomorrow is course evaluation. For those of you who don't know what to expect, ask those who do. I'm in need of some caffeine."

A smattering of laughter travelled the lecture hall. Lily circled a passage in her manual, pushed it into her shoulder bag and checked her cell phone. There was a new message from Suzannah. Sweets, u gt tht cocktail bk 4 me? I nd it 4 2nite.

Lily joined the slow queue of students filing out into the corridor. Her thumb moved over the buttons as she eased around the crowd and headed outdoors for the parking lot.

Okay honey :) Be there soon.

It was a short drive to Rancho Park with green lights all the way. It was one of the few suburbs in semi-arid LA that owned deciduous trees, making it a place that could actively prove autumn's existence every year. Suzannah's Spanish bungalow greeted her with its familiar smells of incense and ripe fruit. In the kitchen, Suzannah's mother was visiting to use the landline. Ester had always looked the same: fit and small, bejewelled gypsy style, her hair a mass of natural black curls. She waved greeting and mouthed, "Suzannah's outside."

Descending the back steps, Lily spied her friend in a crouching stance at the roots of an old oak tree. Lying before Suzannah was a stone slab. Two bowls and a chalice were at its centre, and the upper corners of the slab housed crystal stones and candles.

Suzannah held her hands palm-down over the altar, and she was whispering with her eyes closed. Lily picked up the words as she approached.

"...And as I do will, so mote it be."

When Suzannah eventually opened her eyes, she started on sight of her friend. They exchanged a hug and Lily settled on the lawn, handing over the cocktail book. Suzannah felt around inside her shirt pocket to source her pack of cigarettes. She flipped open the book.

"Mimosa's are great," Lily said, pointing out the recipe.

"So is Sex on the Beach."

"Yeah? Never tried it. Doesn't sand go in weird places?"

Lily laughed, finding herself riveted by the altar once more. The candles burned, freakishly steady in the breeze. There was a fingernail sized photograph of a mid-twenties man propped against the copper chalice. Suzannah dragged on her cigarette, following Lily's gaze to the photograph. "That's Brendan," she said.

"Who?"

"He came into the shop yesterday. Wanted a copy of our best psychic development guide."

"An-nd?"

"Okay." Suzannah nodded readily, shutting the book. "So, I had to put the guide book on order, which was good because he gave me his business card. I needed the photo for an enchantment."

"Wait," Lily said. "Is an enchantment like a spell?"

"No. More like prayer for the gifts of persuasion, and for enhancing physical attraction... that kind of thing."

"What if he already has somebody in his life?"

"Hopefully he has now," Suzannah smiled. "And, once I get him to the cocktail party it'll be a match made in - well, my own back yard."

"Why can't you get Brendan without the magic? Look at what you've got going for you! I mean, for one you're cute and you're part-owner in a business-" Lily found her sentence cut short as Suzannah faced about, smoke creeping from her nostrils: a pretty dragon.

"Nothing," she said, "is going to fail in my life."

Lily shrugged and said no more, thinking, I know your Dad deserted you. Maybe you expect every other man to do the same. She began to pluck at grass blades, lost in thought.

"But, it happens anyway, right?" she said. "Failure, I mean. And I don't want to be someone who never tried."

"Tried what?" Suzannah tossed her cigarette into a nearby hedge and planted a hand on Lily's forehead. "What's with you lately? Sure you're not pregnant or something?"

"Suz, c'mon," Lily said, moving back. "Lately, it's more than just some need for closure about Danny. And, besides, we never had this talk. What exactly is it that you believe in?"

"Fine. I'll say this only once, for clarity," Suzannah said, indicating the altar and the grassy section beyond. Words emerged, utterly known to her, as familiar as breathing. "Wiccans believe that one, ultimate power known as Spirit is the composition of the entire universe. We believe it is self-created. We approach Spirit in the feminine and masculine identities we see reflected all around us in nature. The feminine identity, for example, is approached under any name appointed by different traditions - or denominations - within Wicca; like Goddess, Diana, Isis, and Lady."

"Right," Lily said, taking this in. "So, we are god. Nature is god. But, what about Satan?"

Suzannah opened out her hands. "In Wiccan tradition we don't believe in 'original sin', hence we don't believe in the realms of 'Ultimate Good' and 'Ultimate Evil' or their supposed initiators, God and Satan. We answer only to the conscience which nature has provided. And Karma is our justice system."

Lily nodded. "So... if Satan's not an entity, what is Satanism?"

# C

Curtis broke the surface of the ocean, pulling himself astride his surfboard. He scanned the shoreline and recognized his ex-flatmate on the strip. He struck out, then, his palms making a soft glipp noise on the surface. The ocean followed him out, first at his navel, then at his thighs, then at his ankles.

"Luke!" He called. Luke Rancin broke into a jog toward him. His black dreadlocks were tied back in a ponytail, his crude-oil-colored skin shining at the shoulders like dull headlamps. Curtis cupped his right hand in the air to receive his friend's hand. "Fuckin' rebo," he grinned. "Been here an hour. Hailey busting your chops again?"

Luke jostled his surfboard, his green eyes wandering as he said, "Dude, when they say maternity leave it should be - leave for somewhere else. Like a maternity island or something, where they can bitch about guys and swollen ankles all day long."

Luke set his board base down. He held the tip. Grasping one leg at the shin, he flexed it back for warm-up. "Hailey says I work too much. But, she wants all the best gears for the kid. I'm not made of it so I say no sometimes and suddenly she wigs out. I'm talking right there in the store. She's all, 'You never wanted the baby anyway!' Tell you what, man. A ring was always on the cards, but now?"

Curtis inched the zip down on his wetsuit. "Serious? You rethinking it?"

Luke gazed down the beach, taking in the girls and the gulls that hung in the air like stringless kites. He shook his head. "Bro, you disagree on one thing and then it's fucking anything. I should have married her last year when I still wanted to propose. And when she still might have said yes."

# L

"Satanism." Suzannah echoed. She lit another cigarette, her cheeks drawing in as she dragged on it. "It's the occult, and their practice is to subvert the symbols used in Christian doctrine for their own ends. Wiccans practice no such thing."

Lily rested her palm on the ground, propping her weight against it. She pulled a face. "Sorry-y, I know you have a party to prep. But, back to the God thing for a minute... you say that you are god. And, this oak tree is god. So, if you pray to the tree about - say, Brendan - it gives you Brendan?"

Suzannah tossed her lighter from hand to hand. "You're over-simplifying."

"How? I thought you just said-"

"Okay, hold on," Suzannah said, temperately. "Wiccans see nature as being comprised of five essential elements, okay? Those are fire, air, water, earth and spirit. We draw energy from the spirits inhabiting these elements for ritual work. We draw that energy through our tools."

Suzannah picked up one of the candles from the altar. "So, different tools represent different elements. The candle, for example, symbolizes the element of 'Fire', which I needed for the enchantment. It's a partnership between tool and nature. Get what I mean?"

"So, why didn't you just cast a love spell on Brendan instead of doing an 'enchantment'?"

"Aw," Suzannah smiled, the kind of smile only a friend could get away with. "I'll forgive you because you've just had Hollywood witchy movies to go by. Look, it's a question of ethics. Casting that sort of spell is pure control, and controlling others is an abuse of my gifts. It has Karmic repercussions, too, in this life as well as the next. An enchantment asks, it doesn't determine. Huge difference."

There was some kind of philosophical calculator in Lily's head. Minus this assumption, plus that fact...

"And what about Karma?" she asked.

"Well, Wiccans believe Karma has these two, distinct aspects to it. On earth, it has what we call the 'Present Justice System'. It means you pay now for the nice and nasty things you do. The second aspect is the 'Final Justice System', which has to do with reincarnation. So, when your soul is re-born, 'Final Justice' ensures that your next earthly life will reflect your decisions from the current life."

"Okay," Lily said, after a pause. "So, Wiccans don't believe in good and evil; instead, in conscience. Call me stupid, but then what is the defining point? Apart from what society enforces through its conventions. You have a conscience that makes you choose between what - and what?"

# C

"Okay. Catch you later." Curtis tapped the roof of the RX8 and slid into the driver seat as Luke jogged away. He started the engine and dialled up the volume on the radio until it ran right through him; palmed the wheel in a quick reverse and bee-lined for the parking lot exit. He pushed the speed limit, snatching the stick in and out of gears, making up his power as he went along. The sun was pure California, a hot blanket sitting on the roof of the city, Palm tree fronds glinting like plastic in the humidity. He made the turn into Montana Ave. Street traffic began to slow in front of him and he craned out of the window, spotting a construction crew ahead. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, glancing absently at the shops. The store nearest him arrested his attention. Fine Jewelry.

He heard Luke's voice in his head. "'I should've married her when she might have said yes.' "

As the traffic ahead of Curtis began to crawl forward, he nosed the RX8 to the curb and parked. He got out and broke into a slow jog toward the jewellery store. Beyond the plate glass window they each caught the dying sunlight: rocks clinging to gold and silver bands. The sign in the window declared 'Custom made engagement rings'. They had decided years ago to put money on either a house or a wedding. He'd wanted a house, and when he walked Lily through the place she agreed to it. It only occurred to him now - she might have wanted both. But she would wait for his sign.

She likes things plain, he thought, feeling for his wallet. I want a statement.

#  

Once Lily had left, Suzannah re-opened the recipe book. She read the index page without really seeing it. Hearing the back door open, she looked up to see her mother on the back steps, all white linen and hauteur.

"Thanks for letting me use the phone," Ester said. "I'm due at Mika's for a reading otherwise I'd help set up for the cocktail party. Why didn't Lily stick around to help?"

Suzannah gathered her ritual tools from the altar. "It wasn't a cocktails type of visit," she said, "Lily's returning to her spiritual roots."

"She is? Well, I'm sure you did justice to the Craft."

Suzannah crossed the lawn with her armload. She eyed Ester as she mounted the steps.

"Lil knows exactly what I think. She's also one of the few friends I've had since childhood who didn't run a mile at the word witch."

She passed by her mother and heard the footsteps following her into the kitchen.

"Turn around," Ester said, coolly. Suzannah turned, managing to get in the first word.

"Lily's not stupid. She's trying out different avenues and she has some valid questions."

"So, you invited her to one of our workshops?" Ester asked, pointedly.

Suzannah set the chalice down on the kitchen counter, along with the ceremonial dagger. She ran her finger thoughtfully over the Athamé handle. "Ma, there are ways and ways of enlightening people. I just gave her a head-start, that's all."

Ester shook her head. "All the powers of the elements are at your command and you tell her 'think it over'? Well. That should do it." She huffed a smile. "Maybe our Sisters should have tried tolerance when Christians introduced the witching hour centuries ago, and even more recently. Or, have you forgotten what they did to us in Petaluma?"

Suzannah stared at the floor. The silence was like glue, setting them in their places, until Ester tapped her fingertip on the counter to make her point. "Here's how it works. Yes, a few harsh words may have temporarily damaged your friendship with Lily. But, with this tolerance you have virtually pushed her into Christian circles. And trust me, Suzannah, they will teach her to see you as the enemy."

#  

Grace rested elbows on the kitchen table. She pinched the bridge of her nose. There was a dosage notebook before her and three medicine bottles. The pills had been in Beau's hand for so long that there was a small rainbow on his palm.

"First, it's these," he said, shortly. "Next thing you know it'll be Broadway tunes and packet potato!"

As soundlessly as she could, Lily walked through the kitchen, shedding her handbag and her keys. Beau stared at the floor, jouncing one leg on the spot. Grace glanced at Lily, saying, "Just... give us a minute, will you?"

Beau lifted his head, misunderstanding. He nodded, not making eye contact with anybody. "That I can do," he said, and he got to his feet. He shifted around the table and made for the verandah. The door whoomped shut behind him.

The seat in front of Lily budged out as Grace used her foot against it, saying, "Sit down, honey."

Lily pulled the chair around and sat, searching her mother's face. "What happened?"

"Oh," Grace flapped a hand through the air, "He admits he's forgetful sometimes, but that's it. Do you know he has watched that movie three times this week? Three times! That film about the fighter planes."

She stared at her wedding finger and subsided.

I know the story like the back of my hand, Lily thought. You and Poppa met in the backseat of a taxi. He went five blocks in the wrong direction just so he could talk to you. He said that that's why he became a cab driver. He said depending on how quickly one travelled, and how late one set the meter, you could change someone's life. So... how do you tell a man who always known where to go that he's going to become more and more lost?

Lily touched her mother on the arm. "The car always helps him decompress. We'll go for a drive and you can have some downtime. Want me to take that movie back to the store?"

"Well," Grace smiled, wiping her eyes, "I'd prefer a ceremonial burning, but... alright."

From the corner of her eye, Lily watched her father. He was hunched beneath his windbreaker, staring out of the Oldsmobile passenger window. They passed down Colorado Avenue in the dusk, house upon house flowing past. The road was slick from recent rain. Beau suddenly said, "When you were little, you'd say 'raining' and 'sunning'."

Lily smiled. "Luckily my grammar improved or I'd never have made it as a teacher."

Her father talked on, hardly listening. "You were a baby for so long. Then I blinked and you were a-a woman. It was different with Dana. I had time to get used to it. But, the baby of the family - it's hard on a father, that day you realize you're not needed any more."

"But... you'll always be needed, Poppa. Who else can be my father? No-one can come near that."

It was a strange, sad metric system in her father's head where his long-term memory grew, and his short-term memory grew shorter. It was hard to keep up with, and even harder to approach with minimal emotion. Lily took a steadying breath. "So, what'll it be? The Pier? Third Street Promenade?"

Beau gave no reply. Lily decided to tackle the issue head-on. "Nanny Grace wants you to take the new pills. She was a nurse. When she tells you that the pills are the best choice, it should be all the incentive you need."

"Forty years," Beau said, still facing the window. "Forty years I drove a cab. I looked after my wife and raised my children. Forty years, there was ballroom dancing on Thursdays and chess with George at Senior Rec. It's still Thursdays for dancing, and George hasn't said the word 'checkmate' in a week. Now tell me that I need the pills."

Lily kept her eyes on the road. It had become second nature from working with challenged children. Regression. Repetition. Patience. And, Poppa, while I know that you're not a child, you're also not completely the same man who taught me how to ride a bike, or how to budget, or how to interview for a job...so how do we rearrange our roles and have it be impermanent?

"Speaking of medication," she said, deciding on a more conversational tack, "Do you remember the worst times with my asthma when I was little? I missed school for days on end. Lived on the Nebuliser."

Beau stretched out his hand, motioning to the right, still trapped in a dull sort of agitation. "Tenth to Arizona. It's the quickest route to the Promenade. I think. Mm. It is."

Lily flicked the indicators on. Arizona Ave. Why does that sound familiar?

"So, there was this one time," she continued, carefully. "I was the most frustrated I'd ever been. You took me outside and pointed to a line of ants on the driveway. They were running everywhere, carrying big breadcrumbs you'd scattered earlier, and it looked so heavy for them. You said that it feels that way in life, sometimes. Something that benefits you may only seem like a burden."

She paused. "You said that to understand anything in life you first have to make peace with it. Make it your friend. So, I took your advice. Even gave the Nebuliser a name."

Beau leaned forward to adjust the airflow. "You did?"

"Yeah." Lily nodded. " 'Colin'."

Beau broke out a smile. "Funny girl," he said. After a moment, he shook his head. "I don't want to be peaceable about this. I've seen them at the Senior Centre, the ones that tell the same stories over and over and wear incontinence diapers the size of - I dunno - pup tents."

Lily couldn't help a feeble giggle at this description and Beau smiled across at her. He went to speak again and hesitated, saying, "Well, I'm not nicknaming the pills."

Lily smiled. "You don't have to name them."

She couldn't do anything then, but take his hand and kiss it. They travelled on in silence. Lily glimpsed the buildings that blended by. Arizona Ave... Arizona Ave... of course! The fax from Suzannah. Thirteen hundred is the community church. She watched for the building numbers as they rose. 1288... 1290.. 1296...

Releasing the gas pedal, Lily hovered forward over the steering wheel. Her eyes came upon a butter-yellow stucco building. It had a modest spire and a wooden cross for the t in Santa Monica Community Church. There was a white-stone wall fronting the church and a row of palm trees lining it with an expansive parking lot beyond.

"We're going there, first?" Beau said, puzzled, drawing Lily's attention back inside the car.

"Uh, no," she said, driving on. "I'm going there Sunday."

#  

Matt slid papers across the sofa to his personal assistant. "So," he said, "We'll scrub the paragraph on page two and it's all set. Hey, while I remember, did we organize our groups for the bread run?"

"Absolutely." Carol Wexler nodded. Her British accent curled around every word. "Kyle picked three drivers on Wednesday and gave the routes."

"Cool, okay." Matt linked hands behind his head. He glanced the room with its premier corner of wine rack and a grand piano. I could go for a sleek Merlot right about now, but I'm too tired to tease away the religious vibes.

"I think that covers it," he said. "You like a coffee or anything?"

Carol raked fingers through her hay-blonde hair. "No, thank you. Actually, I-"

She tilted her head, grimacing slightly, as though there was an invisible fire she sat too close to. "I didn't just come here to proof the article. For some time I've wanted to bring up a particular subject with you."

"Now's fine," Matt reassured. "Go for it."

Carol put her palms together, pointing them like a ship's bow at Matt. "Okay, so I've only worked with you for a year, admittedly. I also understand that Americans operate differently to the British. However, I believe that one rule applies to all Christians. We should be 'as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves' like the Word says. You have a steady stream of people in your office for counselling. They are needy people. A lot of them are needy girls."

She put a hand to her chest. "Now, I for one know that you manage the line between compassion and professionalism. But, there are those who question the wisdom of it: a single man counselling women when no other staff members are present. Of course, I realize that if the person's problems are urgent you can't simply close the door on them. But, perhaps I could change my hours to be present whenever there's an after-hours session."

Matt nodded. "I think you're right. It's something I've thought about recently, too. It cuts out the potential for suspicion, for rumors, like you've said."

Carol smiled, and behind her square-rim glasses her eyes rounded in relief. "Oh, great! I... well, I didn't want to offend you, or sound like I was casting aspersions."

"No offense taken! Don't worry about it."

Carol removed her glasses, perching them in her hair. "Actually, Matt, for those who ask, what is your stance on relationships? On marriage?"

"My theology on the subject? Or my personal intentions?"

"Oh, your personal intentions. If it's not too intrusive to ask."

Matt smoothed one hand down his jaw line. He studied Carol, feeling his eyelids gather to a squint. "Okay. You said 'for those who ask'. But, since my election interview at this church five years ago, nobody actually has asked. Marriage and relationships are not things I discuss gratuitously. Uh... suffice to say once bitten, twice shy. I have no foreseeable plans."

#  

Curtis felt his hand being drawn back by Lily's hand as they trawled Pacific Park on the Santa Monica Pier. She was gazing with that fascination for simple things that he had long since lost. They stood and watched the Carousel horses bearing children on their synthetic backs, moving to a mindless tune: always going forward and going nowhere.

Curtis tugged at his partner's hand and they walked on in the twilight across to the main Pier. People weaved around them on the wooden planks. Parents with their lively children wearing face masks and waving plastic toys; a young couple feeding one another popcorn from a red-striped tub and laughing as kernels littered the ground at their feet. Curtis strolled in silence. Make it as casual as possible up to the moment, he thought, heading them toward the more secluded end of the Pier.

Lily hooked her arm through his, saying, "You're quiet tonight."

In the distance, Curtis could make out the shadowed masses of Palos Verdes Peninsula and Santa Catalina Island. The sky was peach and purple, spreading like dye on the sea.

Lily brought his attention back when she said, "Sorry I was late meeting you. I was helping Nanny Grace with the spring planting. You know what I decided? This year, I'm going to do preserving."

"Yeah?" Curtis asked, and didn't take his eyes off her.

Lily nodded. "It tickles my fancy to go all domestic-maven on it."

Curtis gazed ahead. He heard himself say, "C'mere a sec."

He led Lily over to the Pier railing. They both stood below a wrought iron lamppost, one in a line of many dotted between park benches, and all trailing out like some historic sleeve over the ocean. Lily had her hands in her jean pockets, waiting for words. Curtis took a moment to really see his partner's face again: her perennially social eyes, the well-defined jaw and the full lips: an expression somehow strong and vulnerable in equal measures.

He rubbed his palms together to warm to his subject. "So, basically," he began, "You never really talked about the days in the Children's home, except that every Friday was meatloaf Friday and Sister Stacy had cold hands. There's this one story you told me about when you'd just been adopted by the Carson's. I always remembered it."

"Really?" Lily said. "Even I don't find my stories that memorable."

Curtis shook his head, not relaxed enough to go with the humor. "The Pier is special for you because it was the first family outing you had after the adoption. You said you were walking along with the Carson's when you suddenly ran up to the railings and just slapped your palm against it. You only understood it, years later, this need to prove to yourself that the happiness was real."

His mouth had dried out and when he smiled, Curtis could feel his cheeks twitching.

"I, uh, I wanted to do this somewhere bigger," he admitted. "Somewhere more expensive. But it wouldn't have meant as much to you. So, at this place where you proved something to yourself all those years ago..." he reached into his pocket, "I want to prove something else to you."

He brought out the small, velvet box and hinged it open. "Lily Hicks, you are the only living thing I love. Will you marry me?"

Chapter 4

Suzannah drew a circle on the whiteboard. She marked eight lines within it to look like a wheel, and peered over her shoulder at the workshop desks populated by dedicants. Every day the thought hit her: I was born to stand here.

"So, this morning will be a refresher course for some of what you've learned this year and a day, according to tradition; and after lunch there will be a written test. As you'll know by now, the Wiccan and Pagan year runs between October thirtieth and October thirty-first. Every year, Wiccans gather to celebrate four major and four minor festivals. These festivals are to celebrate the cycles of the Moon Goddess in her union with the Sun God. We see the Goddess as manifesting herself in three phases during her twenty-eight day cycle as the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. We are currently experiencing one of these Sabbats, when the Maiden aspect of the Goddess unites in marriage with our Sun God to procreate. Who, here, can name this festival?"

She indicated the trestle table before her dotted with lap-sized baskets. Each one contained white petal bedding and a straw doll. There was a flickering trail of white tea-light candles around each basket. From the back of the room a hand shot into the air and Suzannah knew who it was before she set wary eyes on the thirty-something hippie male.

"The festival is Imbolc," the man said, "Only the maiden doesn't do favors for everyone, does she? That enchantment you did for me was a dud."

"Still no job?" Suzannah asked, leaning her palms on the table. "I have two words for you, Sam. Sha-ave."

Several of the dedicants sniggered. Suzannah aimed her whiteboard marker at the man. "Every decision you make in life then affects the outcome."

"That's Wiccan philosophy?" Sam said.

"That's logic," Suzannah said, showing a tight smile to end the subject. She returned to the board to write the word Imbolc. "This current festival is the Celtic word given by the ancient druids to symbolize the beginning of spring time, a time to celebrate the actions of procreation and conception. Celtic tradition teaches us that the original straw brides carried in baskets were woven with takings from the previous year's harvest. Hearths were lit to consecrate the passing of the old with hope for the new season to come. The straw brides were burned in the hearths and the women looked for marks in the hearth ash the following morning in search of good omens."

Suzannah began to pace steadily behind the table. She felt her veins stretch to become straight wires. She was empowered by the soft kick of white linen skirt against her legs and the weight of the bloodstone necklace at her throat. She sounded out, then, making all heads rise. "For those of you who think this is little more than 'arts-and-crafts with a Deity' - and I've known a few - hear me now. Symbols are sacred. We give thanks with them. We find our connection to the Lord and Lady with them."

She pointed out the tea-lights. "One of the primary colors of Imbolc is the color white, which represents purity and newness. So, today we light these candles to honor the re-conception of the Sun. Before you leave the workshop, I'd ask that each of you light a candle of your own in consecration."

She raised her palms, saying, "Blessed be."

A quiet chorus rejoined: "Blessed be."

At the close of the workshop, Suzannah swept the floor and opened the windows to air the room. She followed through into the store where her mother was doling change into the hand of a customer. As Suzannah arrived behind the counter Ester squeezed by, saying, "I'll make the drinks," and she headed from the room.

Suzannah tidied the display of tarot cards beside the register and slipped a new Mystics soundtrack into the CD player. She jumped when a red-haired girl popped out from behind the nearest bookshelf. The girl's eyes were awe-bright as she approached. "Hi, Suzannah, I-I really enjoyed our session today. Hey, you're a Third Degree witch, right? That's - above a High Priestess. I just wanted to show I've been reading up on this. So, you can establish your own coven by now, right?"

"If that was my wish? Yes. I'm a solitary practitioner myself, but my mother..." she gestured in time with Ester's re-entrance, "belongs to a coven."

Ester handed one of the steaming mugs to Suzannah. Alice's eyes widened further and she pointed to the mug. "So, what's that?"

Suzannah simply stared at the redhead for a moment and said, "Echinacea."

Alice's face fell, then, as if she had expected something more significant. She turned and walked from the store.

Ester shook her head, smiling. "Play nice."

"This new breed," Suzannah said. "They watch TV shows loosely based on the craft and think that they have a calling."

But, that isn't what is bugging me. Suzannah glanced over her shoulder at the calendar on the wall. Fifteen years to the day since he deserted us. Drunkard. Because of you, I have no use for the word father. Her eyes connected briefly, evocatively, with her mother's eyes. The shop door tinkled to announce a new customer.

Ester put hands on hips and said, "By the way, Brendan called while you were teaching. He says he can't stop thinking about you."

#  

Curtis surfaced from sleep. He could smell the damp, citrus wake of a showered body and rolled onto his back, seeing Lily resting cross-legged beside him on the bed. She was wearing a black cocktail dress. Unusually formal for a Sunday morning, he thought.

He flexed his knees under the sheets, speaking mid yawn. "Time-zit?"

"Half nine."

"Shit. I forgot to tell you last night. We're due at Mom and Gary's for brunch."

"Oh," Lily said. "Well, can we make it lunch instead?"

Curtis indicated the bedside phone with his thumb. "Go ahead."

Lily reached for the phone receiver and held it to her ear. A moment later, she glanced at Curtis. "The line's dead."

"I'm late paying the bill," he said.

Lily faced him again. "Can we talk?"

"I'll pay it first thing tomorrow."

"It's not that." Lily raked her hair back into a bun and held it there with both hands. Sun streaked her face from the nearby window. "I'm... I'm going out at ten o'clock," she said. "To church."

Curtis gave a nod. For a split second, nothing changed. Then, something moved over in his chest, not exactly a feeling but an actual object of some kind. He swung his legs out of bed.

Lily spoke again, calm but strained. "I go. I listen. I come home. It doesn't have to threaten you."

"I'll let you know how that goes," he said, passing by.

"Hey." Lily caught up to Curtis and she rounded in front of him. He came to a halt with no option but to look Lily in the eye. She put her palms together; resting her chin on her fingertips like this was her first prayer.

"I know, okay?" she said. "I know I can't promise how this is going to turn out."

"Yeah? Well, I can. I've seen exactly what religion can do."

"Then, what? Curtis, why won't you just tell me?"

Curtis wished his vibe would keep Lily there in the pre-action zone. He bent in, stamped a colorless kiss on her lips and walked on, saying, "I'll tell my parents you said hi."

#  

Lily had made up her mind about Karma. It happened at three pm on Friday. After spending the afternoon helping a four-year old girl to read a fairytale in Braille: after hearing a Fetal Alcohol Syndrome boy cry because his body never co-operated with his will... it didn't take long for her to decide, Karma doesn't have an answer for why suffering exists at all in the world.

She pulled into the church parking lot and cut the engine. She sat gazing at the silver butterfly and beads dangling from the rear-view mirror. Curtis called them kitsch. He had a name for everything. Especially the things he hated. Dragging her mind back to the point, she recalled what Suzannah had said that day in the backyard. "When your soul is re-born, 'Final Justice' ensures your current life will reflect the decisions of your previous life cycle."

Lily wished she'd had the presence of mind to argue this way at the time. Okay, so let's stick with just one aspect of suffering: physical disability. Take the boy with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Suppose he led a worthy life in the last life cycle and was destined for pleasant repercussions in this life, but his Mom loved to party. Does Karma transmute, then? So that somebody else affects your current life, and the next, by their decisions? How is that 'Final Justice'?

Keeping her head bowed as she entered the church foyer, more from nerves than any sense of reverence, Lily was offered a church newsletter by a balding man. The auditorium carpet was blue. It smelled pleasantly of cherry odorize. She took a seat and crossed her legs with minimal movement, pressing out the lap of her dress. Gazing ahead, she saw a man approaching the pulpit with a Bible under one arm. He looked to be in his early thirties with ash-blonde hair jelled into a modern, messy tide that still wasn't trying too hard to be young. He began with, "While Terence is away - in Bali, no less..."

Everybody laughed, evidently knowing him. "I've been asked to take two Sunday morning services."

The man leaned his palms on the pulpit and stared out over the people. "In a two-part series, we're going to look at four fundamental life questions which are asked, no matter what culture a person belongs to, no matter what belief they subscribe to. The first two questions are, 'How in the world did everything get here?' And 'Why in the world has everything gone so wrong?' "

# C

Curtis drained the last of his protein shake. His t-shirt clung damp and cool between his shoulder blades after a thirty-minute run. The voice in his head said Sunday mornings are ours. It's my right: the small talk, the sex, the hotcakes afterward...

He stared around the deserted kitchen and his eyes gravitated to the refrigerator door. There was a magnetised photo of a young sponsored boy from Thailand stuck to the white ware. Curtis often heard Lily chatting to the photo while she cooked as if the boy, Lap, were standing right beside her. She wanted to visit the boy where he lived some day. Curtis could imagine Lily in Lap's poorly constructed home, presenting gifts to each of his family members, her eyes on too-slim children and stray animals and taking a personal inventory that somehow blurred into a global sized grief; whilst he, himself, stood by and worried about contracting dysentery from unhygienic cups.

In the centre of the fridge, fastened by an Eiffel Tower magnet, was the storage bill from his father. I can't even pay my over-heads, he thought. Who am I turning into, some compromiser? Some homebody?

He took himself through the internal access to the garage. He buzzed the garage door open and it whirred away, gradually letting in daylight. Going to the workbench, Curtis squatted and reached beneath the bench for his car grooming kit. As he straightened he saw two boxes positioned at the nose of the RX8. The new subwoofers! God, if Lil sees the latest credit statements...

He popped the cap of the car wash liquid and poured it into the bucket. Not enough days in the week for a second job. He glanced around the concrete space and the gap where Lily's Oldsmobile usually stood of a Sunday morning. The thought came like a bolt of lightning. If she can change things, so can I.

He set the kit down on an impulse and headed inside, trekking through the house to the second bedroom. Pushing open the door, he saw one half of the room banked with workout equipment and boxes of surplus items from his flatting days.

Okay. He thought, nodding to himself. Money problem solved. We'll get a boarder.

# L

"Enter the serpent in the garden with his doubting tone: 'Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?' Yet how are we who live in the twenty-first century expected to respond to the talking snake in Genesis? My view is that Genesis describes an actual, historical event - but some symbolism is used to do so.

"One of the reasons that Satan is depicted as a snake is because it's important that we see him as nothing more than that - as a creature, a created being. The Bible tells us that Satan was part of the original good creation, but he rebelled and made himself an enemy of God. His question of Eve is disturbing because it throws doubt in Eve's mind as to the reliability of what God has said.

"And then comes the big lie, 'You certainly won't die. God knows that when you eat of the tree, your eyes will be opened and you will be like Him.' So forgetting, or perhaps ignoring that she and Adam were already created in the image of God, Eve 'took and ate'. And Adam followed suit."

The preacher paused momentarily. "This story is not so much about evil invading humanity as it is about humanity evading God. This is the essence of the catastrophe in Eden. Not simply that the man and the woman did something forbidden. But, that they kicked God out of the centre of their lives and put the big 'I' of self there, instead. Independence and self-rule were elevated to the place that belonged to God alone. What Eve didn't get and what we still don't get, today, is that when human beings seek freedom apart from God we become other than what we were created to be."

At the close of the service, Lily walked to the end of the pew where she found her route blocked by a dark skinned girl, who stood idly reading the church newsletter. The girl looked up, startled. "Oh, sorry," she said, then reached out and tagged Lily's arm. "Hey, wait. Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

"No, I don't... think so," Lily began, and reconsidered the girl's face. It took a full minute of thought. "I may have. There was a guy preaching a couple of weeks ago on Pico. Were you the one-?"

"Yeah! I was the one holding all the fliers. Did I give you one?"

"No. Actually, my friend gave me one and I decided to check it out."

"What, seriously?" The girl said the word with a bright burst, jolting at the knees. She extended her hand to shake Lily's. "I'm Merrin. This is just... can you wait here a sec?"

The girl rushed away without waiting for reply, weaving around groups of people and scanning the room as she went. Lily folded her arms, studying the carpet, aware of a need to leave and somehow, too, of a need to wait. Moments later, Merrin re-materialized accompanied by the man who had preached the sermon. From up-close, there was a true humanity to his face, something warm and entirely unpractised.

He offered his hand. "How are you doing? I'm Matt."

Merrin glanced between them, nudging Matt with her elbow. "Dude, tag me in. Guess why she came here?"

"It's not hard to guess," Matt smiled at her, then at Lily, with, "Are you from around here?"

With a quiet roar, like white noise, all Lily could hear echoing through her head was her mother's recent question. 'If finding God is essential, what are you truly willing to change?' The problem is that this is not just about my own willingness. Curtis is at home, waiting to hate this.

Lily glanced between both faces with an apologetic smile. "I should really go."

"Before you do," Merrin said, "can I tell you something? We have a weekly group that meets up Monday nights. Matt runs it. It's nothing too intense; we discuss anything from the Bible to dating. And we could always use more chicks."

"She used to be in telemarketing," Matt added with a grin. "You'd never guess."

# C

Curtis polished the hood of his car, watching Lily steer the Oldsmobile into the garage and park. Emerging, her high heels resonated on the concrete space as she closed the distance between them. Just below her collarbones, her chest moved in a rapid, shallow breathe.

She's had an asthma attack, Curtis realized. He stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. The hood gleamed so brightly that it took a bite from his eyes.

"Luke called," he said, as if Lily hadn't been away. "The baby shower is Tuesday."

"Okay," Lily said.

Curtis felt his mood improve by an inch at his partner's readiness. He shielded his eyes with one hand. "They're calling the baby Cyprus. You believe that?"

"Oh, what? You know what this means."

"It'll be shortened to 'Cy'. Picture it. Sixty-five years old," Curtis joked, "High-waisted pants-"

Lily spread her hands. "Definitely a comb-over, or worse, hair plugs! No doubt about it. Somebody has to warn them."

They stared at one another, their smiles slow-drying in the breeze. As the silence lengthened, Lily darted forward and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. Hanging there, she whispered, "Hi."

Curtis faced into the curve of Lily's neck. The taste of confusion was there like metal filings on his tongue; how everything seemed to be out of their control lately and yet, somehow, entirely up to them. When they separated, he collected Lily's hands in his and they walked toward the house like a moving bridge. All he had to do was speak, and it was letting Lily back into his day. "You grab the champagne and I'll get changed," he said. "Grey shirt or black shirt?"

# L

Lily opened the refrigerator. Lettuce... ketchup... Cristal. She collected the bottle and re-entered the hallway, reading the label as she called out, "Cristal is pretty high-end for Sunday lunch, don't you think?"

"Mom's about to have her first novel published. That middle-aged romantic crap."

Lily rounded into the master bedroom and leaned on the doorpost.

"Whatever keeps Gary from talking about money," Curtis said, shaking his head as he buttoned his shirt cuffs. "Tell you what, if he brings up the storage bill again today...?"

Lily hefted the champagne bottle. "I'll launch him like a new boat, baby."

Curtis grinned. Lily stared downward and her eye was caught by the glint of the engagement ring. She began to twirl it on her finger, the blue stone with its promise and all its recent baggage. How do I know that you want to own a Viper someday, that you hate TV commercials where animals act like humans, and that you talk in your sleep; but, I don't know...?

"Why do you call your father Gary?" she asked.

Curtis shrugged, going to the dresser. " 'Daddy' didn't exactly fit."

"No. C'mon." Lily went over to Curtis and she sifted her fingers unhurriedly through his hair. He picked up a bottle of men's fragrance, saying, "You mean besides the fact that he can't talk to me without provoking me? And besides the fact that he flirts constantly with you?"

"Yeah, I-I know, he does. But, your Mom's temperamental too, and you aren't this way with her. Did Gary say something or do something to you? I should know this. Shouldn't I?"

Curtis gazed at Lily in the mirror's reflection and he sprayed fragrance below his ear. The hiss was the only sound in the room and was repeated below his other ear. Deep within Lily the moment went saggy like a days-old balloon and she walked on. Just as she reached the doorway Curtis said, "It's not about me, it's... what he did to my brother. That's all I'm going to say about it."

#  

Matt realized that it had not happened in a very long time: talking about one thing while he thought about something - completely - other. He stirred sugar into his coffee as Merrin faced him over the morning tea table after the church service.

She tilted her head, reaching around him for a mug. "I haven't seen that look before."

"What look?" Matt asked, and took a scalding sip of coffee. "I don't have a look."

Merrin whirled a spoon inside of her mug. "Can't say I blame you. Any guy would have found her distracting."

Matt watched as Carol Wexler approached through the crowded auditorium and Merrin followed his eyes. She skewed her lips, disapprovingly. "You know I didn't mean her," she drawled. "The P.A. The Pain in the Ass-s..."

"Scoot," Matt instructed, smiling, as Carol came within earshot. Merrin laughed and sidled away.

Carol helped herself to the percolator jug. "I enjoyed your message," she said. "It's something you forget; that the struggle with sin and with life in general will never be over, even for believers."

"I've asked for some testimonies along those lines for Cafe night."

Carol cupped hands around the mug, smiling. It surrounded her once again; the vibe of wait, there's more. "Mm. I see a few people have signed up already, and that, uh... Merrin was one of them."

"Right," Matt said, missing the point because, for a moment, he actually did: and then, because he wanted to.

Carol ran one fingertip around the rim of her coffee mug. "I know that Merrin is always prepared to share her testimony. Nice girl, for sure, and I have no doubt that God has done a great work in her life. It's just that she can be fairly free with words that we wouldn't normally use. And, in a public setting where people see a gathering of Christians, it just - it's not a good look."

Matt glanced away and back again. "Neither is hypocrisy," he said.

Carol frowned. "Well, I-I'm simply saying-"

Matt nodded. "I hear what you're saying, but the past has made its marks in all of us. What do you know of Merrin's history?"

Carol delivered one, miffed blink. "Just what everybody else knows, that she lived on the streets during her teens."

"Doesn't even scratch the surface," Matt said, and he took a moment to get beyond his pride in Merrin to be objective. "Think of the kinds of people Jesus spent all his time with while he was on earth. They were people who couldn't hide who they truly were. Notorious moneymen, adulterers, cowards... there is nothing deeper than the gratitude of a person who realises exactly what they needed to be rescued from."

He frowned. "I'm curious what you think my job should be, here. To tell Merrin not to swear, or if she can't manage that, to refrain from telling people that God still loves - anybody?"

#  

"To Helen," Gary toasted, smiling around the table. Lily and Curtis raised their glasses to Helen Sloane, their voices blending. "To Helen."

Helen smiled, showing a pleasure that never quite infected her blue eyes. Gary replenished their wine glasses as everybody took their seats. His label-brand wristwatch caught the light. He had a tidy rush of thick brown hair and carried an air of entitlement to him that had always made Lily uneasy.

She served soup from the tureen and passed the bowl to Curtis, smiling between Gary and Helen. "Speaking of new-found fame, your eldest son had an honorable mention in a publication this week," she said.

"Oh?" Helen's eyebrows rose.

Curtis shrugged, almost annoyed, as if Lily's statement was unworthy of a mention. She quickened to see him there; aware of all the things that he kept silent about and of all that he tried to be.

"So, Fitness Finesse prints a monthly newsletter," she explained. "This particular client had early on-set osteoarthritis as well as a poor metabolism. Apparently everyone but everyone had tried to help this woman lose weight. Anyway, working together with a nutritionist Curtis devised this new, low-impact workout that helped the woman shed fifteen pounds within a month. And, the results were reported."

Gary aimed a stare at Curtis, twirling the stem of his wine glass. "Fixed?"

His tone was light, but it missed the mark.

"It's a process," Curtis said.

Helen asked for the basket of bread rolls and as Lily handed it over, the engagement ring sparkled into view. Helen casually arrested Lily's ring finger, inspecting it.

"Mm," she nodded. "Lovely. I'd only heard about it 'til now."

From across the table, Gary smiled at Lily. "You've made my son a lucky man," he said, and then to Curtis, "You're a lucky man."

Curtis ground pepper over his soup: two, swift jerks. "I know I am."

Gary addressed his wife. "And seeing today is an occasion, I have a little something for you."

Helen looked on in placid surprise. Her skin and her hair seemed the same color, the churned-up white of sea foam. It was as if her blue eyes, alone, kept her face anchored there, just beyond the tide of total invisibility.

Lily spooned a mouthful of soup. A droplet hanging beneath the spoon fell onto the lap of her dress pants. She caught Curtis's eye and smiled awkwardly, her head tucked close to her shoulder so that he, alone, would hear her speak. "Er, waiter?" she intoned. "I have soup in my fly."

Curtis gave an appreciative flicker of his lips and it was a link of something warm before civility reclaimed them. Lily shifted her chair back. "Will you all excuse me a minute?"

She found her way out of the room, passing art works and urns and cool neutral colors. In the bathroom she spot-cleaned the fabric of her trousers and, upon exit, stopped short of colliding with Gary. He showed his palms in silent apology and indicated across the landing with a dart of his eyes. "There's a choice to be made with the gift. A feminine vote would make it easier."

Lily nodded agreement and followed Gary down the hallway through a heavy oak door into an office. It was a space populated with leather couches, a stand-alone globe and the brass busts of famous world leaders. A collection of entrepreneurial awards paraded along the walls and photographs of Gary posing with various celebrities.

Gary went to the mahogany desk in the centre of the room. He extracted two oblong boxes from a top drawer. Plucking up the first piece of jewellery, he approached Lily, extending his arm to display it. The plain gold chain swayed in the air and with every other sway, it brushed the valley between Lily's breasts. She took a step backward as nonchalantly as possible. Their eyes latched on.

"Some people aren't treated the way they deserve," Gary said.

"Some people don't deserve the way they're treated." Lily brushed hair away from her temples. You've started it. Don't back out now.

"Sir, I-I realise it's not my place to say what I'm about to say. But, with the storage bill, Curtis could really use some of your patience."

"Uh-huh. That's his latest word for a free pass? 'Patience'? Little joke," he said.

Little laugh, Lily thought. Gary rested his backside on the edge of the desk and laid the necklace carefully beside him. "You know what the problem is with my son, sweetheart? There's an ancient Chinese proverb that says, 'Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you'll feed him for a lifetime'." He smiled indulgently. "I'll save you the bother of catching my drift, here. My son cannot catch his own fish."

"Still, he works hard."

"He spends hard," Gary said, bluntly. "And he will always come back for another fish. Now, while I admire his choice of messenger..."

Lily shook her head. "Oh, no, Curtis would never - he doesn't even know that I'm asking you. _I_ ' _m_ asking you."

Gary simply stared at her, then: creating a long, indistinct silence. Lily drew a deep breath. She could feel her own legs in existence as long lines down to high-heels, the surge of her abdomen against clasped hands. "Maybe I misunderstood the proverb," she said. "I figure that the responsibility doesn't lie with Curtis, alone. He doesn't know how to fish because he was not - taught - to fish."

Late that afternoon, leaving the bedroom community of Brentwood behind, Curtis tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel in an uptight tattoo. "You did what?"

As the RX8 jolted in last minute braking Lily put one hand to the dashboard. Curtis dropped a gear, rotated the wheel and put his foot to the floor to overtake the vehicle ahead.

"So, I shouldn't have asked him," Lily said, quietly. "Can you just slow down?"

The RX8 swooped to the correct side of the road and tailed another vehicle too closely.

"Please?" she said.

Curtis finally decelerated, settling to the speed limit. Lily stared out of the passenger window at the freeway traffic.

"Fine," she said, eventually. "But, two hundred dollar champagne? No phone connection at home? I've seen the statements. You can't get any more credit."

"I'm looking at my options. Gary will never be one of those."

"I was just trying to help!"

# C

Curtis shot a glance at Lily. "I don't need your help."

He knew that his words were like paper cuts, and that once the blood came out it was impossible to put back in. He found this somehow satisfying.

Lily put her elbow on the door's armrest, clawing her hair back. She finally faced him with a tip of her hand. "Is this really what you're mad with me about?"

Curtis said nothing, thinking it isn't the half of it and we both know it.

They made it home in record time. He nosed the car into the garage and he and Lily clapped the doors shut a little more loudly than usual. They walked a foot apart, wending through the house into the master bedroom. Lily removed her sling-backs, dropping them at the foot of the bed. She reached with both hands to unzip the back of her top. It was a designer item Curtis had bought her as a gift. She wears it because she finds it pretty, not because she is impressed by the price tag or because she needs anybody else to be impressed by it.

Knowing this about Lily, knowing that she placed value on things so different from his own ideals, had truly begun to irk him. He watched the zip catch on the material and he crossed to his fiancée, alleviating her hands with a nudge. Lily's face profiled at his touch. Curtis released the zip and slowly drew it downward. It sounded noisy, even that little thing. He parted the fabric and stared at Lily's back for a moment, lightly passing his thumbs over her shoulder blades.

"Thanks," she murmured, heading into the en-suite.

"Are we talking now?"

"I'm changing," came Lily's reply as she closed the door.

Curtis linked hands behind his head and stared into thin air. Ignoring something is still a way of dealing with a problem, he argued to himself. That's why plans have categories. If plan A fails, there's always plan B.

He heard water hitting the vanity basin, a smacking sound that morphed into a frying pan sizzle. So, I guess this is it. Plan B. If she can change shit at the drop of a hat, like church, I can change our living arrangements. And she'll find it out whenever I decide it.

He went to the bedside telephone and discovered it was dead. Of course: the phone bill. He fished around in his pockets for his cell phone. A quick dial later a droll male operator answered with, "How'kin I help today?"

"Uh, hi," he said, "I need the number for the Santa Monica Mirror. Advertising department."

Chapter 5

"I'm thinking of changing electives," Lily said into her cell-phone. She shut the driver door of the Oldsmobile and delivered her keys to the mechanic who stood with an outstretched hand. She mouthed thank you. Electrical noises from the workshop made her cover her free ear and head to the curb.

Suzannah joked down the line, "Changing cars should be higher on your priority list."

Lily glanced at her watch. Her lunch hour was already half spent. "Are you sure I can borrow the hatchback? Curtis would pick me up, but-"

"It's such a big deal, of course, seeing I'm grounded in the shop all day."

Lily smiled as she set out down the street. "God bless your sweet bottom."

"Well... no problem, but let's leave God out of this."

"Seems to be all the rage."

"Speaking of which," Suzannah said, "I rang your place Sunday morning but the phone was dead. I tried your cell and it was switched off, so I got Curtis on his cell. He was home and you weren't. He sounded re-eal peachy."

Lily looked down, watching her legs stride along the pavement; the concrete lines that she crossed without a moment's thought. "I picked a garage near you so I'll be there in ten."

"Okay, see you soon," Suzannah said, and hung up. Lily folded her arms, quickening her pace. She felt it surround her like an invisible rubber band; a loop of all the things she had never questioned being newly brought to daylight. As she walked, it stretched further and further out and if she stopped, even for a second, she would go flinging back to the start. Or - she would snap free. Reaching into her jacket pocket, she unfolded a slip of pink paper and browsed it. Within minutes she had reached Every Witch Way and Suzannah emerged, cigarette in-hand. They swapped a kiss and went to the park bench outside the shop.

Suzannah took the piece of paper from Lily, reading aloud. "Communist Humanism, Religious Existentialism..."

"I know." Lily laughed, shrugging out of her suit jacket. "I don't even understand the titles yet. How depressing is that? But I think I've settled on 'basics of philosophy'. I want to make sure I'm tackling the whole 'God' thing as methodically and mathematically as I can, instead of just following my feelings. Feelings are too subjective."

Suzannah shot out a plume of smoke. "Something tells me all this spiritual stuff doesn't sit too well with your boy."

"It turns out he's an Atheist," Lily said. "But, he won't say why. He has this huge problem with his Dad and he won't say why. The man is - an impasse." Lily extended her left hand. "And then... there was this."

Suzannah's jaw dropped on sight of the ring. She threw her arms around Lily. "Finally! Oh my God, I never thought he'd do it. How did he ask?"

As Lily shared the details of how the proposal took place, she thought; it's a sentence you'd want to remember. 'You're the only living thing I love'. Her heart had dissolved, right then, to travel throughout her bloodstream so that no cell, no platelet, no fibre would go without the news. Yet, as days passed, the sentence had become a question mark, instead. Even now it sat somewhere between her third and fourth rib, creating a hollow of its own. Doesn't the flipside of the statement show how little Curtis appreciates anything else? Could I eventually become that flipside to him, simply through my decision-making?

She fell from thought. "So, the wedding is in December. By then I would have graduated. I don't mind the wait. I mean the way we are right now just... really isn't us."

Suzannah spread her hands. "The Crab and the Scorpion, are you kidding me? Cancerians are all about care and sensitivity. The Scorpio hides feelings and is prone to jealousy. Look, if in your entire relationship you never really had a bone to pick, it's obvious you're going to start seeing each other in a different light at some point."

Lily arched her back tiredly. "You're right. And, I'm sorry, going on like this."

"Why are you apologizing?" Suzannah glanced at the slip of paper. "Hey, um, last week on the lawn wasn't my best day, spiritually speaking. I feel like I actually encouraged you with this stuff."

"No, no," Lily said, shaking her head. "I wasn't there for permission. I knew you were sensitive about the whole God thing, anyway. Because of Petaluma."

In a split second, Suzannah's turquoise eyes became a little chillier, a little more otherworldly. "Let's stick to your life, here," she said.

Lily stared at her friend. It flashed back in memory, the day that they met in the corridors of middle school: Suzannah dressed entirely in black except for a pair of cherry red boots. You looked like a walking exclamation mark, fresh from a commune. But, back then your name was...

"Anu," Lily said, softly. "I didn't mean to bring it up like that - like a weapon."

"What? Why are you calling me that?" Suzannah stood up. "Look, whatever, I'm going to get the keys."

Lily watched her friend retreating into the store. I'm sorry, she thought, but I remember the day you tried slipping into normality with a name. No longer your birth name, Anu, the Celtic goddess of prosperity: maybe because so many other things had failed around you. Some unexplained action by your father caused your family to be expelled from the commune. You moved to Petaluma to set up shop, little knowing how the local Pentecostal church would blame their congregational problems on your family's craft. They held prayer vigils outside your home to drive away your 'evil'. And the day that a congregant was found murdered in the town sewer they threw bricks instead of prayers at your windows and it was the first time in your life that you wondered, 'Is it all really worth it?'

# S

Suzannah found her handbag behind the counter and rummaged for her car keys. Ester walked in from the back of the store, bearing a box of merchandise in her arms. She set it on a stool and stared out at Lily on the park bench. "I was right," she said.

Suzannah shook her head. "I didn't say that."

"You'd never say that." Ester smiled. She split open the box with a penknife. "Just watch. Soon, she'll start dropping off your social calendar."

"Ma," Suzannah said, and the word sounded like a warning bell. She'd never raised her voice to her mother before. "I've been thinking," she redoubled. "I'll-I'll sort it out."

She started for the shop door, eyes on Lily. It was hard being so open with you, the day I admitted that when a girl reaches the age of thirteen within a coven she might adopt a magical name - usually after a deity she wishes to embody or after a Wiccan martyr from history. But, I kept returning to just one name. It was because of you, the closest I came to having a sister: 'Suzannah' means Lily, in Hebrew.

She breezed the door open, making sure that she looked determined but cold at the edges, too. She extended the car keys. "The gear sticks between first and second, so you've got to force it."

Pausing, Suzannah said, "Look, I won't try to stop you going back to church. But, I want you to try something before you do. Just one thing."

#  

"I'm Heidi, and I want thighs like hers," the girl said, displaying a magazine photograph for Curtis. Heidi had walked into Fitness Finesse on her forever legs, wearing stack-heels and the latest shade of lip-gloss. Curtis could just imagine the cosmetic label: 'Peach Whip', or 'Nude Dream'... the vernacular of desire. It was his stock and trade.

"If you're looking for personal training, I'm afraid I'm all booked," he said. "But, I can introduce you to someone-"

"I just want you-u," Heidi wheedled. "My friend has you! She loves you. I even bought a yoga kit!" she added, flailing an arm toward the gyms equipment store. Curtis let his eyes wander to the juice bar and across to the sauna rooms in fake consideration. It matched Heidi's fake plea. He eventually nodded. "Follow me. We'll draw up a fitness plan."

"Thank you!" Heidi said, giving a quick clap. She followed Curtis toward reception saying, "There has been far too much 'wah-hey' lately, you know? I just feel so ugh."

"Well, you've come to the right place," Curtis smiled. Ushering Heidi toward the consultation area, he picked up forms from the receptionist along the way. They arranged themselves on one of the ergonomic sofas. A water feature burbled in the background.

"This top sheet requires your basic details, Heidi, then we'll go over the particulars," he began. "Things like your diet, any regimes you're currently working through, and your general health history."

Heidi took the top sheet from Curtis and began to write. There was a red band on her wrist for spirituality. Kabbalah. Just another accessory for a Better Her, he mused. It's easy to imagine the soft-top car, her house set up in Feng-Shui perfection...

Heidi's cell-phone rang inside her handbag. She dove for it, flipping it open. "Hello?"

She paused melodramatically, rolling her eyes. "What? Tom, no! Tom, come on."

Every time she said the man's name, it became a greater accusation. "Tom, you're on your own with this! No. I won't help you. Jesus Christ, how did men rule the world before feminism happened? Fix it!"

Curtis thought, Lily would never make me beg like that, he thought. It was a gift, getting Gary to back off about the money. Still, it doesn't fix how things have changed, lately. When she went to church it wasn't just a challenge. It was an ultimatum.

He took the papers from Heidi who had gone stiffly silent on the phone. He read the page over and scratched his signature at the bottom to say that he had a plan. It was then he realised his only course of action. Lily doesn't know why I'm so mad; why, Deity or not, I'm the only one she can trust.

#  

Curtis carried the breakfast tray to the kitchen table. He stood back, adjusted the angle of the tray, and headed for the master bedroom. He went to Lily's side of the bed and hunkered down. She lay in one, long morning curve beneath the sheet, her mouth in a sleeping pout against the pillow. Curtis reached out and rubbed Lily's forearm.

After a moment, her brown eyes broke open. She inhaled deeply and faced into the pillow, moaning, "Wha-at? It can't be six o'clock yet."

"C'mon." Curtis stripped back the sheet, taking Lily's hand to ease her upright. She clambered out of bed, scuffing blindly into her slippers. Curtis guided his fiancée toward the kitchen with hands-on-shoulders and as Lily slipped into a seat, her face enlivened. The table bore a burning candle and a tray covered with a tea towel.

She looked up at him. "How long have I slept? Is it my birthday?"

Curtis grinned. "Nah. Hey, you remember the first year we were together, the do-before-you-die days? I test-drove a Viper and you wanted to spend a night on the beach."

"Mm," Lily nodded. "I carried that shell in my jeans 'til it left a watermark."

Curtis plucked up the tea towel, revealing freshly cooked hotcakes and a dish of spreads. "I wanted to say sorry. Or, uh, thanks. Depending on what you wanted to hear after the other day's... thing."

Lily inhaled the breakfast smells. She glanced up at Curtis, shyly somehow, and she kinked her index finger for come. Curtis got to his knees. They traded a long, considerate kiss, and he reached out to smear the hotcakes with spread. Lily picked up her fork, taking a bite. She stopped chewing after a moment and circled one finger above the spread. "Um, babe, what's this?"

"That's chutney."

Lily guided a forkful toward Curtis. He bit into it and curled his lip at the clash of sweet and savoury tastes. Lily breathed a laugh through her nose, one hand over her mouth.

Curtis said, "Yeah, yeah, so maybe it wasn't the best choice in the world-"

Leaning in, Lily plugged his mouth with a kiss. "I love you. Were you never told that chutney is a savoury thing?"

"You still have to eat it," Curtis said, picking up the hotcake. "You can't escape it, you realise, this-this... hockey puck."

Lily threw her head back and laughed. Curtis borrowed a sip of her coffee and went through to the foyer, collecting the morning paper from the front doorstep. Upon return, he fished out the sports section and handed the rest of the newspaper to Lily, settling opposite her at the table. They read in respective silence for a time, turning pages.

At one point, Lily said, "That month-to-month rental is still here. The one in Beverley."

"Yeah?"

She skimmed toward the end of the section and her lips moved like she was double checking something. "No, that is ours," she said. "What's our phone number doing in the accommodation column?"

Oh, shit. Curtis eased the Sport section down. "I said I'd look at my options with the finance thing," he began. "I was going to tell you tonight. Definitely."

"I can't believe that you didn't... even in passing!" Lily faltered.

"Babe, you know how I get. I'm impulsive."

"Name a time when I didn't consult you on something."

Curtis snorted. "Uh, okay, church."

"You wouldn't let me bring it up!" Lily said. "And while we're on the subject, what is this permanent state of denial you're in, where - if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist? I mean, what is that?"

Now that the subject had arrived, gloves off, Curtis felt an angry calm; though it wasn't an anger directed solely at his fiancée. "It's so like a woman," he dismissed. "This emotional need for everything to be answered 'existentially'."

"You... don't believe in God but you know a word like 'existentially'?"

"I grew up around rich people, okay? They use big words."

Lily chewed at the inside of her cheek. "Well, what does it mean?"

"It means 'finding yourself' in a cosmic sense, like, what's your place in the universe? Anyway, getting back to the money," Curtis said, leaning elbows on the table. "If we have a boarder until December, it'll get me over the financial hump. Babe, you've got to see this from my point of-" he stopped, rubbing one hand distractedly through his hair. "I'm sorry. I am. You can be the one to choose the boarder, okay?"

Lily drained her coffee. "You're still not asking me, are you?"

She pushed her chair back and walked from the room. Curtis rolled the Sports section into a tube, tapping it against his open palm. Remember, this will only go away if you tell her everything - absolutely everything.

He made his way down to the master bedroom, finding Lily in the walk-in wardrobe with a dress in each hand. There was a slump to the set of her shoulders. She faced about. "What if it turns out that you're wrong and God does exist?"

"Then he would have some explaining to do."

"So, you deny the existence of all deities? Or just the Christian God?"

"Just especially the Christian God."

Lily settled on a dress and passed him by. Curtis stared at the dresser, where happy faces sat in a photo frame and a magnolia lamp waited to shed light on things. "What the hell," he said, and Lily faced him in the doorway of the en-suite. "I mentioned my brother the other day and what Gary did."

Their eyes met, sheering off one another. Curtis returned his gaze to the lamp. "It, uh... it all started with Father Donovan, alright?"

"Babe, if you don't want to talk-"

"No, I'm talking! You wanted me to talk," he said. It sounded harsh. She raised her eyebrows in astonishment at his force; then, sobering, she nodded.

Curtis took a moment to choose his words. He propped hands on hips. "Okay. So, Rory and I attended a private Catholic school. That year, Rory was ten. His math grades started slipping and he wound up in remedial classes. Father Donovan taught remedial math and he was known for his sour attitude. But, over those initial months of extra classes, Rory started coming home with weird marks on his arms like paper cuts and bruises, as if someone was giving him Chinese burns. He was always a popular kid. He had no bullies and didn't even play contact sports, but my parents didn't put two and two together until months had gone by - almost six months - and Rory came home one day with a dislocated shoulder."

Lily said, "Oh God, no."

"Oh God, yes, it seemed," Curtis said. "Rory finally admitted that Father Donovan was into physical punishment, big time, if he didn't get the answers right. This time Donovan had twisted Rory's arm up his back and he'd just pushed too hard. The person Rory mistakenly chose to confess to was Gary - who was angry enough to demand restitution but not angry enough to go to the Board of Education on an allegation. When Gary confronted Father Donovan, the old guy turned on the waterworks and promised to get counselling. He didn't want to lose his job with that kind of disgrace. My Dad could understand that."

Curtis paused, a steely smile flickering across his face. "He's a very understanding guy, my Dad. He had an upscale property on his listings at the time, and he was self-employed so all the commission went to him instead of having to split it with a broker. His version of restitution was to demand that Father Donovan buy this place in the Palisades. Donovan paid out one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Today the equivalent is close to half a million bucks. This was the nineteen-eighties, so you can understand that the commission Gary took from this is the reason why... he began to live out his days in style."

Lily swallowed, visibly, as if her life had come down to watching him. "Curtis," she said softly, and that was all.

He shrugged. "In school assembly I heard that God sent his son to die for sinners. And, I started thinking if God really exists, what good is he - if life is going to be this way, where every son is punished for someone else's sins?"

#  

"Go back to the coda."

"It's a freaking brick wall, Matt. I can't do it."

Matt smiled at his teenaged piano student. "It's just a bad habit. Remember how long it took you to forgive Für Elise? Pretend that your brick wall is made of chocolate, instead. Take a bite, Kate. Enjoy it."

Kate settled both hands on the keys of Matt's piano. She glanced at the fish tank in the background, where the turtle paddled next to a sunken ship. "It would help if Chainsaw had a more hopeful expression," she said.

"Yeah, well," Matt smiled, "for him, the tank is always half-empty. It's a journey."

He set the metronome going and pointed to the music sheet. "Coda."

From the kitchen, the telephone rang. Kate's fingers began a slow crawl over the keys. As Matt turned away he said, "How's that chocolate tasting?"

Passing into the kitchen, he scooped the receiver to his ear. "Matt speaking."

He saw his day-planner lying open on the counter and he ran one finger down the schedule, aware that there was still no sound on the phone line. "Hello?" he repeated.

After a moment an intake of breath sounded, followed by a rustling noise, and the line went dead. Matt put the receiver back and squinted at his planner. 4:00-5:00, piano lesson. 5:30 inter-church prayer meeting...

He crossed to the freezer and extracted a frozen chicken, placing it in the microwave on defrost. He heard the distant honk of a car horn in the driveway, and Kate said, "It's my Mom. Hey, I think I got it!"

"You got it," Matt said. "See you next week."

He passed into the hallway to see the blur of Kate pulling on her coat and whirling through the front door. The door had no sooner slammed than it re-opened, admitting a lanky priest.

Matt crossed to his friend, stretching out his hand. "Ah, Farhza Baker."

Scott Baker grinned. "My son."

They clapped palms in greeting and moved toward the kitchen, Scott unclipping his priest collar as he went and pocketing it. "I took an infant baptism and a funeral all in one day. It's depressing how much we get wrong between those two life events as humans."

"I wonder what is the worst thing I've ever done?" Matt said. "Doesn't bear thinking about."

Scott went to the refrigerator and sourced two beers. "I never say what needs to be said at the time. I like people liking me too much. That's one of my biggest faults."

He handed a bottle to Matt. "So, maybe today I'll break the habit and tell you something I have wanted to say since the twelfth of never."

"Bring it on."

"I think it's wrong how single you are."

Matt grinned. "You think so?"

Scott glanced the kitchen, his attention lingering at the microwave. "I think - you're a man who knows exactly how long it takes to defrost a chicken."

"So what? I'm a new age kind of guy. Maybe you're just projecting a little."

"Hey, no." Scott said, becoming serious. "I made a choice to be celibate. That wasn't part of your deal. Your celibacy is self-inflicted, and it was based on a lack of closure."

The telephone sang on the kitchen island. Matt reached for it. "Hello, Matt speaking."

Scott raised his voice in the background. "He'll date you..."

Matt frowned. "Hello?"

"He likes Mexican food," Scott called again.

"Whoever's calling, you may have the wrong number. Mine is triple four, double one double nine."

Matt hung up. "I keep getting this silent caller. It's the third time today."

"So, as I was saying..." Scott said.

Matt laughed. "For someone who doesn't do this 'honesty' thing a lot? Kudos."

Scott pointed a finger at Matt. "When Penny left you, you assumed there must have been good reason for it," he said. "Take it from me. There wasn't."

#  

As they walked toward the den in her flat, Suzannah glanced at Lily. "You said you visited Danny's grave yesterday?"

"It's been a while," Lily admitted. She came to a halt and lapsed against the hallway wall. "The other day I found some notes we used to pass in class. In one of them, Danny said that he was reading through the New Testament and one of his favorite verses went something like, 'Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see'. When I read that, I figured that hope is-" she planed her hands, "wanting something particular to happen, and wondering if it will happen. Right? So, how can you hope for and be certain of something that hasn't even happened?"

"No idea."

"I thought about this in my own life. I hope to be a good wife. And, differences aside, I'm sure that Curtis will be a good husband. But how can I be 'certain' that Curtis will be a good husband? I think the only answer is that I have a history with him. That's when I realized that Danny had a history with God. Sure, he was scared at the end. But if God is true to his word, then Danny was about to see what he'd hoped for."

Suzannah nodded, indifferently. "That's logical enough. But, memory can be a patchy thing. I thought you'd want to hear it from the horse's mouth."

Lily smiled, glancing around the hallway. "What... horse?"

Suzannah crooked a finger. "Come on."

# L

Lily trailed her friend into the den. It sat like a small, cool cave in evening moonlight. Lily stopped in her tracks, seeing a table at the far end of the room. The table was swathed in a black cloth and decorated with two burning candles. At the centre of the table there was a crystal ball. Suzannah gestured for them both to take a seat, saying, "Firstly, I want to be clear about what I'm not doing. Mine is not a missionary religion. I'm just offering you a second perspective. D'you remember how we talked about Spirit, the spiritual power that comprises the universe? It's also known as Akasha, and it keeps what we call the Akashic records. This is the record of every soul's movement during its many reincarnations. Because of Akasha, we're able to communicate with people who have passed on."

Lily had a gradual shrinking feeling in her scalp. "Ri-ight," she said.

She eyed the crystal ball. It seemed a little hokey, like a two-dollar game at a fair, yet Suzannah was all business. Lily took a steeling breath and nodded. "I'm here now. Let's do it."

Leaning down beside the table, Suzannah produced a fabric pouch. "This is sage. I'm going to cleanse the room of negativity and prime the space for spiritual energy."

She set her lighter to a bundle of dried sage and proceeded to walk the perimeter of the room, wafting the sage and murmuring under her breath. Once she had returned and extinguished the bundle, she opened a bottle labelled peach oil and rubbed her hands with it. She poured out stones from the pouch and proceeded to hold them against Lily's body. For Lily, it was like being in a foreign land despite Suzannah's explanations.

"You have seven chakra points. These stones have different purposes for cleansing your chakras: for removing fear, promoting concentration... etcetera."

Lily whispered eventually, because whispering seemed appropriate. "Are you a Psychic?"

"We all have psychic abilities," Suzannah said. "It's a matter of harnessing it. This would be a psychic session if you were asking questions about your own life. But, this is a channelling session because, by giving myself over to Spirit, I become the direct connection to Danny."

"Okay. But... what if Danny has already been reincarnated into another earthly life? You told me about this. Wouldn't it mean that Danny is unavailable to communicate?"

Suzannah didn't hesitate. "Wiccans believe that between reincarnations our souls wait in a place called Summerland. If Danny is available, it means he's there."

"Oh." Lily digested this for a moment. "And, will I see him? Or hear him?"

"No, only I will." Suzannah slid onto her seat. "Once the channelling begins you can ask anything you like. But, for now, I need absolute silence."

The room fell into a strange stillness, like it, too, had heard the command. For several minutes Suzannah took long, deep, calming breaths. Soon, she had virtually ceased to blink and she gazed into the ball in a tranquil way as if it wasn't even there. She began to speak. "I see him, a male figure. He's slim and showing a smile. He's indicating around himself like 'I'm here, I just exist on another level'. He just... he's just given a thumbs-up sign. He wants you to know he's fine. He's patting his head and pretending to preen himself because his hair has grown back."

Lily gave a soft, incredulous laugh into the hollow of her hand. She sobered and felt tears arrive. She hunted through the ball that showed nothing, nothing to those who didn't believe that death was just another way of living and she had seen it once before: how a stage magician had put a girl inside a box and sawed it in half. The participant had emerged intact to applause, even though everybody had seen her divided.

Suzannah said, "He draws a sign in the air. It's like a question mark. He is indicating to his eyes as if he's saying, 'Are you seeing things that aren't there? Or, are you not seeing - what is'?"

Lily spoke with a voice that seemed too loud no matter what she did with it. "Danny, is it what you hoped for, where you are? Is it Heaven?"

Suzannah's eyelids drew to a trembling close. "He's pointing at you, and making the question mark sign again, and shrugging with a smile, like he's saying you shouldn't still have questions when you've known all along."

"But, known what?"

Suzannah opened her eyes. She fixated on the wall behind Lily and she said, "Do you see?"

Lily sent a glance over her shoulder at the wall. There, the painting tipped suddenly to the right as if it had been pushed. Fear tensed Lily's spine and her mind took over, taking her back to her childhood, back to Sunday school. "Our Father who art in Heaven," she uttered. "Hallowed be Thy name..."

Suzannah blinked, once or twice, signs of life flitting through her face.

Lily concentrated on the tabletop. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done..."

Suzannah seemed to rupture back into the present with a shake of her head. By degrees she showed her face. Her eyes were darkened glass. "Congratulations. You've lost him."

Lily got up from the chair, losing her balance momentarily and using one hand on the chair-back to steady herself. For the first time in her life, she wasn't familiar with her best friend's face.

Suzannah stared at her with a brilliant, crouching rage in her eyes, seeming almost inhabited when she said, "You don't approach Spirit with a coward's tongue. Face it. You're not cut out for the truth. You only want a version of it that doesn't scare you."

"You're different," Lily said. "You look like you want to hurt me."

Suzannah mechanically began to cover the crystal ball in its velvet cloth. She stared at the table and shook her head at last, sounding more like herself. "It's okay," she said. "But, you should go now."

Chapter 6

Merrin Franklin gestured to the hostel kitchen, eyeing the newcomer. The client sheet on her clipboard called him Joel Shearer.

"These ingredients are free," she said. "Just the basics."

Joel was tall and lean: graceful somehow, despite his scrappy black Mohawk, ear tunnels, and no angel vibe. He wore an untucked white shirt, faded khaki pants and shin-high trooper boots. He shifted his backpack to his other shoulder, scanning the benches sparsely populated with coffee, spice, and pasta jars. Merrin continued the tour down the lime-green passage at a stroll. "This is the main recreation room. We show a movie every Monday night. The computers have free wireless access. And... here is the laundry. Machines are coin operated, a dime a load."

As Merrin and Joel passed a young blonde woman, Merrin rounded and said, "Gimmie me good news, baby. It's not cottage pie again tonight?"

The girl hollered back, "Afraid so, dude!"

Merrin sighed. "What I wouldn't give for a steak round here."

"I guess none of this is complete without a loud, black tour guide," Joel commented.

Merrin gave him a measured stare, taking a moment to let the comment slip. She led on through the automatic doors to the hostel's private suites. Reaching suite five, she keyed it open and thinned herself against the door to allow Joel inside.

"Linen is kept in the wardrobe, and you share a bathroom with the adjacent suite. The possession or the usage of drugs or alcohol on the premises at any time is strictly forbidden and the curfew for all residents is ten pm sharp. Any questions?"

Joel shed his backpack onto the single bed and pushed up his shirtsleeves. Looking on, Merrin spied several long, faded scars on the inner flesh of Joel's arms. "Nasty," she said.

Joel looked down at his arms and back at her. "You'd know," he said: still in that calm, deadpan way. Merrin had seen plenty like him before, people with dead planets for eyes, and she remembered again the One who helped to separate her past from her future. Merrin tucked her clipboard under one arm and rotated both of her wrists to display old slash marks. "Hey, man," she said, letting the marks speak for themselves.

Joel looked on, not batting an eyelid. Merrin began with, "Look, there's this church I go to that-"

"No thanks," Joel interrupted, without any particular force. "The messages preached at the churches I've attended would sooner help me finish the job than anything else."

Merrin rustled up another smile. "Had to ask. So, you all set? The 'loud, black tour guide' is about to go off-duty. Feel free to contact reception if any problems occur, and I hope you enjoy your stay."

"And, do you?" Joel asked. "Hope that I'll enjoy my stay?"

Merrin couldn't hide her grin. "Mostly."

"Hey," Joel said, speaking louder than before as Merrin turned to go. She looked back. "This place is only temporary," he said. "I'm looking for a place to live with people; like an actual house. Maybe I can make a couple friends. Could you keep an ear to the ground? You seem like you'd know the kind of people who would give me a chance."

#  

Lily switched her cell-phone to speaker mode as the Oldsmobile idled in the fast food drive-thru. "We said no female boarders, remember?"

"Yeah," Curtis said down the line. "Remind me again why that was?"

Extending an arm out of the driver window, Lily handed cash to the employee. She dropped the take-out bag onto the passenger seat, accelerating. "Because this was all your idea and this is my only stipulation."

"So, it's a flat-out no even though this girl sounded fat on the phone?"

Lily laughed, reaching into the bag for her burger. "By the way, I left a quiche thawing on the counter. Don't skip dinner just because I'm not there, okay?"

"I still think it's weird," Curtis said. "Suzannah booked tickets at Centrepoint for Macbeth and you just forgot? You never forget. Especially where Shakespeare's involved."

Lily bit into her burger. It tasted of guilt. She braked for an intersection, landing the burger back in its bag.

"Anyway," Curtis said, flatly, "I'll catch you later."

"Love you." Lily ended the call and hunched over, pressing her forehead against the steering wheel. She clenched her jaw until her teeth ached, clenching because she had dared her partner to see past his own point of view, and God was just another Gary to him. She had dared herself to be open-minded and one spiritual power had challenged another around a crystal globe and it planted fury in the eyes of her best friend.

A car horn sounded impatiently. Lily flashed upright, driving on. There seemed to be colors everywhere, more colors than usual: a green light for going, a white lie for hiding, and a pot-of-gold sky while everybody still looked for their rainbows.

The mountains to the north of the LA basin lay in three dimensional formation to the eye, slumbering in shades of periwinkle to darkest grey; blanketed by sage brush, Alder and Sycamore trees. Evening sunlight had faded to buttercream, like it, too, was afraid of seeming too strong to be believed.

Lily followed the instructions she had taken down on a stub of paper and she steered into a tidy cul-de-sac, discovering the bungalow with one seven seven on the letterbox. She double checked her appearance in the rear-view mirror and clambered out, going to the front door. She knocked, swiftly testing her breath inside her hand.

Matt Livingston winged the door open, dressed casually and standing barefoot. His face was etched with a smile. "Hey! Lily, right? Glad you could make it. Come on in."

She was lead through the foyer into the living room. It stood in ruby red welcome with touches of culture everywhere; a voluminous bookshelf to her left and a wine rack beyond, a fish tank with a turtle scuttling over stones at its depth. Far end, a man was chalking a cue stick beside a billiard table. He had a receding hairline and wore a pair of round sixties-era glasses. Matt used his hand to direct introductions. "Scott, this is Lily. Lily, Father Scott, a friend of mine from seminary days." Matt glanced at Lily. "He's living here while his new house is being built. He came into a little money recently-"

"-From an uncle I didn't realize I liked so much," Scott said, jokingly.

"It's modernist design," Matt explained. "I'm working on not resenting him, but..." he see-sawed one hand in the air, pretending he was fighting a losing battle.

Lily laughed. The awkwardness with which she had arrived was fast disappearing. Matt gave a loose-armed clap. "Can I get you anything? I usually do espresso for the group about now, so you're welcome to join me."

Lily nodded and fell in beside him, wondering how to begin this evening, wondering how to sum herself up for the man if he asked. Unwittingly, Matt came to her aid. He broached a question as he reached into the refrigerator. "Merrin told me on Sunday that you had heard the street preach on Pico and decided to try the church. If it's okay with you I'd be interested to hear it in your own words."

"It's a pretty long story," Lily said. She stood with one leg crossed self-consciously in front of the other like the letter X. "Merrin called you a 'Young Adult Director'. Would I be considered young?"

Matt grinned. "Maybe the more pressing question is do you lack direction?"

Lily took this with a brief smile. "Maybe. I mean, I told a lie to come here tonight."

She opened out her hands, feeling her face burn red, there in front of God's representative. "I lied. I don't know what to do with that. Heck of a way to start a spiritual search, you know?"

"I assume that whoever you felt the need to lie to is not a fan of spiritual quests?"

"You could say that."

Lily heard a car door slam outside followed by another and the driveway sensors flicked on. Matt gave a protracted nod. There was a constant, time-tried understanding in his look. "We're glad you came," was all he said and he moved away from the counter with a roll of his hand. "Come and meet everybody."

As the evening advanced, the young adults congregated in Matt's living room. Someone made a paper dart and several people flew it back and forth over the assembled heads. Most of them were warm toward Lily; some simply said hello and left her to herself. Discussion revolved around Matt's sermon on Sunday, the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden.

Matt took part in the dialogue, but Merrin was happiest to pitch in, hugging a sofa pillow to her chest as if she was at a sleepover. A young man in his twenties with the biggest Adam's apple Lily had ever seen kept finding fault with everything. He used his hands a lot.

"Why just one tree of life?" he demanded of anyone who caught his eye. "If God's all-knowing and he knew Eve would pick the apple then he basically forced her to eat it!"

Merrin argued, "You're only looking at the tree. What about the rest of the garden? You're missing God's intention for us. The place was freaking paradise! If we started off without free will, then there had to be a point of choice - to choose free will. And how can you choose it if you're pre-programmed not to be able to choose? You have to be given the opportunity to do it. If it hadn't been the tree, it would've been something else."

"Yeah," said a Latino girl. "Jared, why would God make us and just leave us acting like slaves having to do what He wants? Then we wouldn't be choosing to have relationship with him, it'd just be - like - robotic."

Jared re-launched. "So, God doesn't determine anything, then? It's all up to us?"

"I see it like this," Merrin stated. "Life is like a huge maze, right? And God knows where the clear roads and where dead-ends are. But He's not going to remove every obstacle for you, or give you a map for that matter. Can He intervene? Yeah. Does He always? No. We have brains and hearts to give us our own compass in life. We can ask for His will to be done, and ask for His guidance, but He isn't going to write stuff in the sky. That would be a total cop-out."

A quiet girl with white-blonde hair spoke. "That makes it sound like God doesn't care, like he doesn't care enough to be involved in our lives."

Merrin pulled a face and everyone laughed, so she pointed to Matt. "Take it."

He nodded along and rubbed his jaw in thought. "Well... when it comes to God's concern or involvement in our lives, I think we should keep referring back to the original 'fall' as our blueprint. One of the first things that God did once Adam and Eve fell from grace was to call to them, 'Where are you?' Here's Adam, hiding under a rock, and God calls out to him. He calls out, I think, not to discover where Adam is... but to show Adam where God is."

"I never actually thought of it that way," Jared admitted.

"God doesn't call out so that he can punish Adam and Eve, either," Matt said. "Skip a few verses down and it says that God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve to cover up their nakedness. This meant the death of some animal that once enjoyed freedom in paradise. Just so that Adam and Eve could walk with God again. Death entered the world for the first time. God's love was their - and our - second chance. We can't hide from him, and He made sure we had the choice to come forward."

At the end of the meeting, when people were invited to share their current concerns and prayer needs, Lily mentioned that she and Curtis were looking to take in a boarder. Merrin eagerly piped up with news of a newcomer at the hostel where she worked. Lily left her contact details with Merrin and didn't stay around to chat once the session was over. She arrived home at eleven pm and tiptoed into the master bedroom, undressing in the dark. Curtis roused from sleep, sitting up on one arm when he spotted her moving shadow. "Babe?"

"Yeah." Lily slipped under the covers and settled close to her fiancé with a sigh. Curtis's whole body enveloped hers, one arm and one leg draped warmly over her. His breath smelled like old coins when he spoke. "How'd it go?"

What did I say it was? Lily thought. A few tense facts in a row. Centrepoint, Shakespeare. No Matt, no Merrin... and definitely no God.

"Good." She held Curtis at the waist and kissed the curve of his shoulder twice. "It was good."

Their bodies swayed a little, slotted in place like the faceless, primitive figurines in boutique stores. Find something warm we can aim for, Lily thought. Keep us where we've always been.

She moved over Curtis with a smooth hitch of her thigh. When she kissed him, his mouth stretched into a smile beneath hers.

"Mm," he said, channelling hands over her hips. "I like the way your mind works."

"Hey, let's go to the beach, tomorrow," Lily said, reaching back with both hands to pull the bed-sheet over their heads; forming a cave. Their words would be the historic carvings on the walls. They would have to keep deciphering, in order to survive.

"We'll call Luke and Hailey and get the jet skis out of storage from your parents' place."

Her lips hovered close to his cheek, each breath escaping in tiny feathers. "We'll cook a pot of clams and watch the sun go down. You can whip it up on the jet-ski; make all the guys jealous and all the girls drool." She paused. "Whereas I will climb on the jet-ski and just try to stay on."

Curtis gave a drowsy laugh. "Oh, Christ, I can see it now."

Hesitantly, Lily said, "Does the jet-ski still do that thing...?"

"Course it does," Curtis said, amused. "If you come off the jet-ski, it'll just drone around in circles. It'll always come back to you."

Lily shuffled down the bed and lapsed over Curtis's torso like a starfish, her head trained to one side. She could hear him deep down, deep within: down through his skin and his muscle tone to the place where his heart kept its rhythm. It'll always come back to you.

#  

Suzannah hoisted herself up to sit on the kitchen counter. Her flat-mates were at work. It was a day where she realized with a sudden, stunning clarity that all she had put into her life had somehow been afforded back to her in one, embracing moment. Cigarette in-hand, her eyes never left Brendan's face as he chopped fresh chives at a whirlwind speed.

She'd always found the idea of chef work sexy; that restrained strength of the knife, the skill of simultaneously filling meal tickets and bossing the underlings too. She even enjoyed the idea of Brendan's rebellion in grabbing the occasional puff of weed out by the restaurant skip when his boss wasn't around.

Brendan flipped one end of a tea towel over his shoulder and wrung his hands on it. His head disappeared in the pantry and he said, "Oregano, Oregano..."

Suzannah shot smoke out in a line to speak. "Top shelf. I think."

"You 'think'?"

"Hey, look, you're the one who's good in the kitchen and I'm good in – all the other rooms of the house," she laughed. She hadn't had so many years of smoking that her laugh crackled: it was more just a quick, husky escape. It was one of the few things she liked about herself.

"Damn straight you're good," Brendan agreed, sending shrimp into the wok with a hiss. "Last night I thought I'd lost the use of my spine forever."

Suzannah swung her legs like a child, her heels hitting the cupboards in syncopation. "Listen to my little kitchen bitch," she crowed. "He's all-man."

It was one of those delicious weekdays she grabbed illegally every so often. They had both called in sick – although her mother had been a far harder boss to fool than Brendan's. They planned nothing more for their day than sex, and eating, and a little more sex.

Brendan tossed the contents of the wok in a half-moon action. He had a fat joint tucked behind one ear and his pants sagged in need of a belt below his metal band t-shirt. He crossed to the fridge, pulled out a lager and muzzled it for two, humongous gulps.

Suzannah couldn't help the feeling, looking on: the automatic tension that tightened every muscle in her body. Dad. She thought. Making his way through the house at a slant... colliding with things... language that a kid shouldn't hear...

She lit another cigarette, a slight tremor to the hand that held the lighter, and she checked her watch. Eleven am.

"It's a little early to be hitting the sauce, no?" she asked.

Brendan stared at her, the bottle poised before his mouth. He raised his eyebrows and drank some more, then wiped the bottle's rim on the edge of his t-shirt as he walked toward her. "It's our day off," he pointed out.

Suzannah nodded yes, but she couldn't bring herself to look her boyfriend in the eye. What happens when he drinks? Does he know when to stop?

She had only known him for two weeks; and this, the first full twenty-four hours spent in his company. Brendan took hold of her chin and brought her in for a kiss. She mumbled briefly against him and broke away. Ma can't reason with Dad, gesticulating in each other's faces... 'Suzannah, make yourself scarce'...

Brendan backtracked to the wok, staring at Suzannah. He wiggled the bottleneck in her direction. "You know I like you and all," he said, "but don't start getting like that with me."

#  

"... And now into the Cobra position, which removes tension from the spine and back, and strengthens the abdomen and buttocks-"

Curtis had his sentence interrupted mid-class by his ringing cell-phone. He didn't recognize the caller's number and he put it on silent mode, apologizing with his best wing-tip smile to continue instructing the mat class. By all appearances, the women forgave him instantly. The few male attendees exchanged quick, low-lidded looks, like bonehead. He didn't give a damn what they thought. They weren't the ones suddenly on an upped salary that included use of the boss's time-share yacht. They weren't the ones about to get married after twelve years. His luck was in, and he'd made it all happen on his own merit.

Throughout the class the phone continued to buzz in his pocket. When the class disbanded he discovered missed five calls. He listened to the messages. Each one concerned the room for board and all of the callers were women. He was listening to the last message when the phone rang, live. He picked up.

It was a male voice; thin, uninflected. "Hi. Is the room still available?"

"Absolutely," Curtis said. "Who's calling?"

"Is the room big?"

"It's an average double-sized room. Who's this?"

"Joel Shearer. I'll take it."

Curtis smiled incredulously. "You need to provide at least two testimonials, and it's two weeks in advance for bond."

The voice was quietly persistent. "How about I give you three weeks in advance and I move in tomorrow, no questions asked."

Curtis was used to the smell of money. He hesitated, imagining Lily's response, one of those things a woman would say. 'What if he's a serial killer? We need testimonials!'

He waved briefly to two women who went by throwing smiles at him. "Look, what's your rush?" he said. "Come by tonight at seven. I'll be there."

#  

Lily remembered it now, Christmas-time four years ago. She had finally managed to talk Curtis into attending Carols by Candlelight at Main Street Park, something her parents had always wished their daughters to attend. They'd gone as a family every year up until the year Danny died when Lily abruptly abandoned the scheme. Receiving the invitation out of the blue this particular year she realized that she had been secretly longing for a chance to reconnect with a happier aspect of her past. Attending the event also slotted in neatly with the feeling she'd had all her life; some mental contract she had written into herself from childhood: The Carson's changed your life. Anything is the least you can do.

Promising, threatening, cajoling Curtis, they had finally made it to the park. She'd accepted a candle inside a glass bowl from her mother, whose pleasure was obvious by the flickering light.

The crowd stood hundreds deep. Night stars looked on in festive pews, yet another night for them to shine. Rows of palm trees waved liquid-bright fronds along the boardwalk like groupies and the air smelled buttery with that packed-close human essence. Warmish notes of sea salt called from the nearby beach.

Lily stood facing forward, wrapped in Curtis's arms, trying to remember the words to the carol, 'O Holy Night'. Early on, Curtis had begun singing sarcastically in her ear, 'Oh Holy Shite, the stars are brightly shining...'

She'd hid a smile in her hand, looking back at him. Grinning, Curtis sang a little louder, 'Oh shi-ite Divine...'

Lily had rested her head back on his shoulder and watched the flame dance in its goblet. It seemed to her like a life: so easily lit. Too easily snuffed.

Eventually, she'd tapped Curtis on the thigh in chiding. He ceased from singing, then, and rested his chin deep in the collar of Lily's shirt instead. Not long afterward they slipped away together to the beach...

Back in the present, Lily absently jittered her legs as she stood in the queue at café Mocha Sins. Back then it hadn't occurred to her that the words Curtis jokingly sang represented genuine ridicule. She had figured Curtis was simply acting out. It was a familiar ploy of his, after all, when he wasn't getting his own way: either to make a point or to make Lily capitulate.

"Two low-fat mocha chinos with extra marshmallow?" a voice called from behind the counter. Lily reached the head of the queue and paid.

Since Curtis's disclosure about his brother, she'd found a link in their two stories - a hurt so deep and so wide on another person's behalf that it couldn't be thought around. For his sake, she would not mention any of her religious findings. She hoped, in return, that Curtis would allow her to make that search in peace. Drinks in her possession, Lily pressed her back to the café door and revolved out onto the sidewalk where Suzannah sat in the sun, smoking her umpteenth cigarette at a curb-side table. Suzannah received her drink with the relief of the caffeine-deprived, saying, "God, I've actually been dreaming about these."

"If I lived in another state I'd make the trip for these," Lily agreed. "Hey, um, I wanted to ask, are you okay? You just don't seem yourself at the moment. How's it going with Brendan?"

Suzannah eyed the ashtray balefully. "I don't know, it's... I'm just discovering Brendan's penchant for a different kind of liquid lately, that's all."

Lily sobered. "Oh. That'll just bring up memories of your Dad."

"Exactly. I'm nervous. But, hey, I'm a big girl and if I can't handle it? He's..." Suzannah tipped her head for gone.

"Well, just keep me up-to-date and forget the whole bravado thing, okay? I'm serious."

Suzannah nodded agreement and silence ensued. Both women eyed the boulevard from behind their drinks, watching the soccer-Mom cars and open topped tourist buses rolling by. Bohemian pedestrians mingled with young executives and designer brats from the ultra-moneyed communities of nearby Beverly Hills and the Pacific Palisades.

Lily ventured, "I went to the, uh... the Bible study the other night."

"Knew it. I knew there was something different about you. I could smell the other people you've been hanging out with."

"Oh, Suz, c'mon," Lily tipped her head in complaint.

"No, I'm serious!" Suzannah said, setting a flame to the tip of her cigarette. She took a short drag. "With Christians it starts out small, alright? It's all bright-eyed and 'tell everyone about it' style. Then, it happens! You're saying 'saved' this, and 'unsaved' that: saying that the world is going to end and we'll all die. And they call that the 'Good News'."

She rolled her eyes, adding, "Why can't they say that the world's going to start over? That'd be more hopeful. Now that would be good news."

Smoke escaped the edges of her mouth, a facsimile. "So, how about you, Lil? Are you going to start telling me that I'm unsaved? That I'm going to die?"

Mildly puzzled, Lily said, "We're all going to die."

"Jesus, what did I tell you?" The spitfire said. "So, when is it going to be? When will the sky go red and the trumpets sound?"

"Suz, we both know you're just saying this stuff."

Cooled by the response, Suzannah retired to stub out her cigarette. Her fingers did a quick dance on the filter to put out the embers. "Why can't you just be Buddhist? Orange is even totally your color."

The two friends exchanged smiles, completely knowing one another.

Lily said, "Because, I'm not religion shopping. That's why. Why would you consider Buddhism a better choice, anyway?"

"I don't know," Suzannah shrugged. "You learn a few maxims, go without meat, maybe take a little peyote...?" she joked. "Whatever, look, it just doesn't alienate anybody."

"Maxims and opiates? How is that saving me?"

Suzannah jettisoned two hands in the air. "Saving you from what? God, what is it with this whole 'saving you' thing? Is there some tsunami coming that I don't know about, some imminent Holocaust? Listen." She used the side of one hand against the other, gavel-style. "You have questions, you struggle with shit, and by the time the answers come? You die. That's it! Nothing saves you from that. So, what's left? This hell that nobody has seen with human eyes that's been rumored through generations to scare little kids into telling the truth?"

Lily set down her empty cup and said, "Christianity claims that God saves me from me. Look, I know the way that I am. I am crap. I know that I cheated a little to get the grade on my latest paper. I know that I have a fiancé but I still look at other men. And nothing about Buddha says that I'm worth moving out of the lotus position to reach! This God of the Bible claims to love, actually love, crap people. For that reason, alone, He is different to any other deity I've heard about. And, when I ask these questions, I think it's-it's human history."

"How?"

"There have always been people who can't settle for the status quo because they know, even without knowing, that something isn't right. In ancient times they said that the world was flat. There were a few people who couldn't sleep at night until they saw those corners for themselves. So, they went. And they looked. And the world was round."

"Are you telling me that I see the world as flat? That I'm primitive?"

"No, of course not. But, you're sitting there telling me that life is 'only one way'. You could be right. You could be wrong. I have to go and find out for myself."

#  

Arriving home that evening, Lily heard male voices sound from the living room. She grabbed a leftover drumstick from the refrigerator and followed the voices, discovering a tall, thin stranger in conversation with Curtis. She stopped short of their space, feeling self-conscious as the stranger scanned the length of her body, starting at her feet and finishing at her eyes.

She waved the chicken drumstick. "Uh, hey."

Curtis cast a glance between them. "Lil, this is Joel. He's looking at the room. Joel, this is my fiancée, Lily."

"Hi," Joel said, and he proceeded to bow, deeply, like someone in an old-fashioned film.

Lily smiled, circling the drumstick in the air to indicate space. "How d'you like it?"

"We're just going over the finer details," Curtis got in.

"Oh, I'll leave you guys to it," Lily nodded.

Joel said, "Must you?" And he showed perfect rows of white teeth. He stood hunched at the shoulders as if he'd spent a lifetime ducking some imminent slap. Apropos of nothing, he quoted, " 'A perfect woman, nobly planned; to warn, to comfort and command...' "

"Wordsworth!" Lily said.

Curtis gave a no-nonsense smile. "Okay, so if we can just finish up here..."

Taking the hint, Lily waved the drumstick once more and vanished from the room. Once Joel had left to catch a bus, Curtis and Lily stood together in the foyer. He opened out his hands, saying, "Should I go first?"

Knowing what was coming, Lily smiled and delicately picked her teeth clean with a fingernail. "Go ahead."

"He showed me cash and I checked out his testimonials," Curtis said, growing a frown. "But, what the fuck? With the bowing and the poem? Who does that?"

"I thought it was sweet. Strange, but sweet."

"Okay, well, you have your version and I'll have mine," Curtis said, dryly. "What the hell. The testimonials are good, and I can't be screwed with interviewing a hundred other people."

"Sure." Lily tipped her neck in a tired circle. "I've got no problem with it so long as you're happy. I mean, once he's here - he's here."

Curtis wandered forward and wrapped Lily in a bear hug, catching her off-balance so that she squawked. They settled in a huddle against the foyer wall. After a moment, deep in the embrace, Curtis spoke against Lily's hairline. "That means he can move in by the weekend. Christ. I just hope he doesn't turn into some kind of a third wheel."

Chapter 7

Monday morning, Matt hit the ground running. _Seven am_ : adopt-a-highway clean up, clamping bits of garbage with one of those parole-type gadgets. A middle-aged woman shared homemade cookies with all of the volunteers, shedding goodwill on thoughts of mankind. _Ten am_ : piano student. _Eleven am_ : accompanying senior minister, Terence Breen, to the bedside of a dying elderly woman. Her relatives were unfriendly, argumentative, their minds clearly on the woman's last will and testament. _One-to-five_ : office work. He booked a Young Adult's hike in Solstice Canyon for the coming weekend and had coffee at his assistant, Carol's, behest. Lately she appeared in his office time and again for more than work-related issues; dusting the furniture, borrowing books from his personal library...

These notes on life he shared, not with Terence Breen or any of his fellow church leaders, but with the one person who knew exactly where he'd been in his life: Father Scott Baker.

Not everybody knew that discipline and burnout were Matt's curse, and his cause. The doctor gave him blood-pressure medication for it and called it 'suburban fatigue'.

Few people knew that Matt called it fear. Because one day, Penny Bowden had simply up and disappeared from his life, never to be heard from again, and the loss had never completely left his system. It made him flee San Francisco and never look back. He'd tried to catalogue it. He'd earmarked it for some self-imposed lesson, and been on his knees before Almighty God until he'd had no more tears left to shed. He brushed feelings aside during dinner parties when people chided his single status although there had been plenty of opportunities to move on over the years. Numerous congregant women had insisted with their wide smiles; 'Oh you must come and meet my daughter'... 'my neighbor'... 'my sister'...

And he'd stood fast with quiet declines and managed to keep his life to himself. He didn't believe in the concept of finding the One Perfect Person pre-destined as a life mate, nor love at first sight. His love for Penny had been a spark that turned into a flame - which, inexplicably, had turned to ash.

So here he was, damp and cool; finding fire about him to reflect its glow. Here he was, made of timetables and Bible verses and unwritten songs. And while Carol smiled and hinted her way around Matt's work days and weeks, he kept his mind on his work and his heart on the God of his life, hoping - praying - for a personal light that would touch him without taking him, never knowing if it was too much to ask.

All of this stood true until the day he was introduced to Her. The girl with a name that matched her face: as vivid and fresh as a newly opened flower. And while his mouth had smiled congenially at her that first Sunday morning, and while his tongue moved in speech, the girl couldn't have guessed it: that the very centre of his being had shown its hands in surrender - oh, some incredible relief, like daylight rewarding a vigil.

And, he had no idea how to tell it all to Scott Baker, his champion, his brother in Christ: how to say that he'd set Penny Bowden free to drift away, at last. How, soon, he couldn't remember all the features of her face in clear definition, and how the realization of this did not actually sting him anymore.

How, without warning, life was suddenly coming up - lilies.

#  

Suzannah slipped a pair of jeans on beneath her black dress and scrutinized herself in the full-length bedroom mirror, thinking, It's no fashion statement but there's no other way to ride passenger on a motorbike without losing your dignity.

She grabbed a book from her bedside table and tossed it into the open backpack. 'Wiccan Prayer: a guide to daily meditations and rituals.'

Hanging back in deliberation, she tossed in a second book. 'The Power of Self-Coaching.'

Brendan was due to collect her any minute. Every year, he participated in an annual interstate cook-off in Arizona. While his fellow chefs from restaurant Salt booked minivans for the trip, Brendan preferred blowing the dust off his motorcycle and taking his time on the open road. Soon, they'd be lamming it on the Freeway, bound for four straight days of sightseeing and room service.

Suzannah hurriedly tucked her hair back with bobby pins, reminded of an eight-hour trip wearing a helmet. She squeezed the backpack shut between her kneecaps and zipped it. The clothing in her collection was a variation of black and gray, the hues of her hiding. Brendan would discover her, one layer at a time as she allowed it - if she allowed it.

She grasped inside her pockets. Cigarettes? Check. Outside came the sound of tires on gravel and Suzannah lugged the pack off the bed, nearly dislodging her shoulder with its weight. She paused briefly before the mirror. Her face was an optimistic, pure white oval.

"Get a grip," she commanded her reflection. But, she smiled at herself and could not help admitting to herself that her heart thrilled like it was her first school dance, and she hoped against hope not to be a wallflower.

#  

Lily had been making an effort to make Joel Shearer feel welcome. Curtis couldn't bring himself to a similar intention. Not that he had any particular problem with the guy. He was simply ambivalent on the subject. Whether or not the guy likes where he lives doesn't matter to me, so long as the board kept coming in.

In his opinion, Joel was a sulky bastard. Lily called him soulful, probably because the guy was a struggling actor in-between working shifts as a busboy at a pizzeria. No wonder the guy was so pale, no meat on his bones. He only left his room to use the bathroom or to grab a carrot from the fridge. He had a thing for raw carrots. During Joel's first days of residence, Lily's first question when she arrived home in the evening was, "How's Joel? Have you seen him today?"

As if he was their new acquisition, some woebegone puppy. Sometimes she sought Joel out and said, "We're watching a movie if you want to crash with us."

To Curtis's relief, Joel hadn't accepted the invitation to date. Meanwhile, Curtis had secretly scooped several hundred off the board-in-advance and bought a new dash styling kit for the RX8. He saw it as reward for good behavior. He and Lily were keeping up comfortably with the mortgage payments and he figured it was okay to have some playtime. To even things out, he scooped another hundred from the board-in-advance and mailed two, crisp fifty-dollar notes to his father for the storage bill. He wrapped the money in a sheet of paper and wrote the solitary word Storage on it.

Curtis had arrived at one, solid conclusion, growing up. Gary was someone who didn't notice or approve of anyone that wasn't exactly like himself. Gary handled his youngest son, Rory, with kid gloves since the mess with Father Donovan. And his eldest son he simply tolerated.

From a young age, Curtis felt he had developed an ability to see through his father: crystal clear, like those superheroes he read about in comic books who had X-ray vision, and inside of his father where there should have been a heart, and where there should have been guts, there was only the metallic grind of dimes and pennies to be seen, instead. Any example of this fact was easy to call to mind. Years back Grandpa Jack used the Sloane's family holiday home in Malibu. One day Curtis had stumbled across a bill from Gary to Grandpa Jack - for holiday rental.

After this, nothing had surprised Curtis. Not even the year of his eighteenth birthday, when his mother was out of town and when he'd expected nothing in the way of celebrations: this, the year before he met Lily.

Gary had thrown open the bedroom door at midday, saying "Up and dressed, birthday boy."

Sleepy, confused, invaded, Curtis stayed put.

Gary toed the base of the bed. "Come on. Come check it out."

Curtis eventually unearthed himself and followed his father down the stairway; saw Rory hovering sheepishly by the living room door.

He rounded into the room and simply stood there in his rumpled boxer shorts, his eyebrows high with shock. There were women and champagne bottles everywhere. These were Centerfold girls, nipped, tucked and implanted, flashing smiles at him; and flashing a whole lot more than smiles.

Gary laid both hands on Curtis's shoulders and muttered in his ear, "Welcome to your manhood."

He saw his friends gathered outdoors by the pool. They came whooping into the room. Bottles of champagne were shot-corked and bubbles cascaded everywhere. It was happiness like a dream. Still, something about it he didn't know how to handle.

The day blurred by with so much to see and to sample. His little brother was wreathed in smiles, looking more like the Rory of old, and they both quickly became drunk. A blonde woman had cornered him with a rack on her like she'd stuffed two toilet paper rolls down her t-shirt. Curtis moved away to refill his glass and looked back to find the girl had disappeared.

He trekked outdoors to the pool and made a running leap into the e. Several friends followed suit. His champagne flute sank to the bottom of the pool without his noticing and he stepped right on it, crushing it and slicing the inner arch of his foot. Blood swirled up in the water. Some of the poolside girls shrieked, far too hysterical to warrant the moment, and his friends clapped him on the back as he clambered from the pool as if he'd battled something more than a broken glass.

He limped indoors and made his way to the bathroom for the first aid kit, pushing open the door. Promptly, Curtis staggered back. He saw his father standing, facing away, the glimpse of a kneeling blonde, her head bobbing around Gary's midsection. In a flash, Gary heard the door open and he shoved the blonde away. He grabbed a towel to cover his crotch, his eyes wide on Curtis's face. "Son!" he called. "Wait!"

One bloody footprint trod the carpet, making a haphazard trail. Gary caught up to him in the hallway and he seized Curtis by the shoulders, pressing him to the wall. "Stop. Listen!"

Days later when Helen returned from vacation there was a different story to explain the footprint, and the stains were never fully lifted from the carpet.

#  

Saddle-sore but jubilant, Suzannah flopped onto the motel bed. The walls were cornflower blue. An outdated TV set with a crooked antenna stood opposite the bed with a cheap watercolor tacked on the wall above.

Brendan pushed through the slider doors with a bag in either hand. The door key was clamped between his teeth. "I'm fine, really," he grouched.

"Oh, babe." Suzannah jumped up, alleviating him of one bag and dumping it on the bed. She caught Brendan at the waist and gazed up at him. "Hey, is this a smoking unit?"

"It is now," Brendan said, palming the keys at the bed. "The manager's a tool. I'm not dealing with him again."

Suzannah rocked her boyfriend a little, searching his face. "You nervous about tonight?"

Brendan shrugged, staring down at her. They both had red Arizona dust in the crows-feet of their eyes. "How's about a good luck f-... fling?"

"Later." Suzannah smiled, moving away. "I have to shower first."

She heard Brendan unzipping his duffel bag and next came the swish sound of a bottle. In the bathroom doorway she glanced back.

Brendan hoisted a liter bottle of bourbon. "Toast?" he said.

Popping the cap, they each took a pull from the bottle. Looking to give the moment more class, Suzannah found two glasses from the kitchenette and they linked arms to wash another tot of the alcohol down. She peered up at him, an instant fuzz lining her apprehension. One drink does not an alcoholic make...

Brendan carpeted the drinking glasses and suddenly collected a surprised Suzannah high into the air, holding her at the waist: she with her slender frame, compact as a doll, her rouged lips and snow-white skin spinning against the room. He let out a whoop. "Fuck the shower!"

And Suzannah folded against him. Their lips and tongues mingled in a heated exchange as Brendan propelled them toward the bed. Suzannah lay there, laughing, as her boyfriend made a pouncing motion over her. "Then," he said, a touch breathless, "We're going to clean up this joint."

"Oh, you're one of 'those' people?"

"You better believe it." He poked playfully at Suzannah's ribs. "We want the free little shampoo bottles and the complimentary coffee sachets and the TV remote batteries-" he leapt to his feet. Suzannah settled on her side, her head propped against her palm, and she called after him, "You're pretty cute for a moron."

Brendan disappeared into the bathroom and presently re-emerged, clutching an armload of soaps and towels and wearing nothing but a shower cap. Suzannah abandoned herself to laughter. Brendan walked jauntily over to the bedside cabinet and opened the top drawer.

"Aha!" he crowed. He drew out a palm-sized book with a Navy blue cover: a Gideon Bible. Their eyes locked.

Suzannah arched her eyebrows. "What?"

"You ever read it?" he asked.

She plucked it from him and tossed it to the floor, pulling Brendan over her once again. He let go his stolen goods, making them patter onto the carpet. "I don't need to read it," she said, cocooning Brendan's body. "I know how it ends."

The venue was a converted warehouse. There were round tables covered with checkered linen cloths and a bar built of pine logs. Numerous rusted old license plates, lasso ropes and the skulls of bull steers decorated the walls. A makeshift platform stood at one end of the room, backlit, with numerous cooking stations in front. Knife blocks jutted out of the shadows, and refrigerators stood like a row of giant, grinning teeth beyond.

Several men in the audience wore Stetson hats. The majority of women wore blouses, high-waisted jeans and even the odd homespun waistcoat like Suzannah had seen in the movies. She felt like an alien, with her black hair newly shot through with violet streaks, garbed in a black skirt and boob tube and Docs with red laces to accentuate the red flare of her lips.

Even Brendan's chef friends treated her with caution. She knew that it was all in the eyes, like she was the magnifying glass on a hot day and they were the ants. It had always been that way, to push away what she feared so that she could protect what she depended upon. Lately, she simply wanted to blend in and be considered - average.

The lights dimmed. An obese emcee roved the platform with a cordless microphone, introducing the competing teams and the judges seated at a table before the stage. Suzannah spied her partner in the wings wearing his apron with the name Team Salt embroidered on. She saw Brendan rubbing his eyes and one of his chef pals whispered in his ear. He didn't seem fully focused.

In the hour lead-up to the show, Suzannah hadn't been allowed backstage to see her boyfriend as Salt restaurateur, Craig Lamb, prepped the team. She had heard that the odds were good for Team Salt to win. The previous year, they'd come runner-up. The winning team would gain five thousand dollars a piece and earn guest spots on a syndicated cooking show.

# 

Lily's lecturer in philosophy class, Paul Durham, looked and sounded like a lawyer. In her mind's eye she had expected an urbanized beatnik. The lecture hall was packed with people whose faces showed they had questions ready to ask. She wondered what her own questions would be.

Paul Durham addressed the class in a concise, energetic manner without any particular lecturer-to-student camaraderie; more with a sense that he would pass on the knowledge he owned in order not to detain anyone. Lily had writer's cramp within the first five minutes, feeling that every word she heard or wrote could mean something she'd never explored and might never want to be without again. Yet, the alternative possibility crossed her mind - that this class, this seeming door to the Dali Scream-esque landscape of the mind and the universe, could also leave life relatively unchanged if she couldn't make sense of it all.

She scribbled notes in her own words: Philosophy is a means by which a person holds a set of values about himself and the world around him. This philosophy is primarily defined by: the individual's ethics, their culture, their religious beliefs, and their direct experience. Philosophers, by definition, are those who seek to justify their philosophies through rational argumentation, using logic systems such as Deductive, Inductive, and Abductive reasoning.

"More on forms of argumentation later in the week..." Paul was saying.

Lily wrote faster to keep up. Peoples' philosophies most often disagree within two separate realms; one based on subjectivity (emotional, i.e. personal belief) and the other based on objectivity (i.e. observance of facts). However, the law of physics exists to provide us with facts that cannot be disproved simply through personal beliefs. These sets of facts exist, independent of thought, and are established scientifically in the universe in the realm of Objectivity. On the matters of both science and ethics, Subjectivity seeks to simply offer an opinion on a subject, while Objectivity seeks to maintain facts.

Philosophy, then, is established through both observation and through reasoning of the mind. An individual will start with an assumption, which, if proven true, leads them to believe in a correspondent supposition. In this way, by building upon viable assumptions, an individual can plausibly establish an argument that is generally held to be true.

"So, how do we really know what we know?" Paul said, giving Lily a break from writing. "How does it come about that some things can be argued to be true, while others are discounted as having little rational basis to them?"

The lecturer wrote two phrases on the whiteboard behind him. A Priori and A Posteriori.

"These two Latin phrases are the most commonly used terms in philosophical reasoning as a means of defining knowledge. Think of these two terms as being the building blocks - or the basement level, if you will, of the philosophical building. The A Priori argument is one of pre-established knowledge, which means that no direct experience is necessary to prove that it is so. For example, the statement 'All Dogs Bark' doesn't need me to go and hunt out different examples of the canine species to question if each dog makes the same sound. It is an established fact that all dogs bark.

"This is where A Posteriori comes in. It depends on empirical evidence, or in other words, the verification of what has been observed to be justifiably true. After all, our senses often fool us. Take the sense of sight, for example. If I stick a straw in a glass of water, it appears to change shape as if it's been cut in two. My sight is not necessarily to be trusted in this case. However, prior experience teaches me that when I pull the straw from the glass of water, every time without fail the straw is as straight as when it went in.

"Concurrently, with the question of the dog's bark, A Posteriori's answer is this: that for all human history both recorded and reported, every living dog on the planet has made the same sound, without exception. Not a single known dog has ever meowed, or trilled in song, or neighed... you see what I'm getting at. So, A Priori knowledge is acquired through different mediums of education without a need for direct experience. And A Posteriori seeks to validate that same knowledge through hard evidence."

Lily watched as Paul strolled behind the lectern. She wished that they could exchange brains in midair. She contemplated how blissfully Paul Durham must sleep at night, seeing all the angles in life.

Late that afternoon, Lily interrupted her journey home by stopping in at a printing shop to pick up the engagement invitations. They were envelope-sized cards with a gray font on a darker gray background with a tiny watermark of the Santa Monica Pier emblazoned in the top right-hand corner. She smiled all the way home, despite her mind keeping up a constant reminder of current issues like an entire room filled with post-it notes.

While pushing into these new waters of discovery, she wanted to make sure that she didn't leave Curtis behind. She had skipped church as well as Matt's study group for two weeks in a row, promising Merrin Franklin by text message in the meantime that she hadn't entirely disappeared the scene.

At home, she showered and set about preparing dinner. Joel soon materialized in the kitchen doorway. He wore stovepipe jeans and a wife beater, his eyes in a sleepy squint. "Hey," he said colorlessly, going to the refrigerator.

Lily smiled. "Hey. How've you been?"

Joel sourced a liter of orange juice and tipped it freely into his mouth for several draughts, set it back and pressed a fist to his chest, letting out a burp. "Great."

He shut the refrigerator door. "Oh. I should've used a glass."

"Oh, that's... that's okay. Um, would you like dinner with us tonight?"

"My board includes power, not meals."

"It's on the house," Lily said, and spoke to one side of her hand in a stage whisper. "He'll never know. Besides, c'mon, anything's better than another round of carrots. Surely."

Joel smiled, his eyes trained on hers. "You're not uptight like he is."

Lily turned to empty canned tomatoes into the frypan. "Well, once you get to know him-"

She stopped and switched tact, keeping Curtis to herself. "Hey, so what do you do for fun?"

Joel shrugged. "I don't know. Acting, I guess. It's work and play. I've never been in one place long enough to make friends: you know, friend-friends."

"Why did you move around so much, if it's okay to ask?"

Joel's eyes darted away briefly. "Foster homes."

Lily put the ladle down and faced Joel. She was all-eyes. "Really? I was adopted as a toddler from the children's home on Clement Street. D'you know it?"

"Nah, I was never there," Joel said. "So, you were little Olivia Twist, huh?"

Lily smiled at the wisecrack but they stared seriously, then, recognizing something within one another. "I've never met anybody else who had that experience," she said. "What were they like? The foster homes?"

"Awesome," Joel said, poker faced. "So, when did the folks sit you down for the official 'adoption chat'?"

"They didn't." Lily set an egg timer for ten minutes and absently put it down. "Well, it never seemed a good time or the right time. In the end it didn't really matter."

Joel frowned. "Of course it matters. Your life doesn't have a beginning to it. What else matters but that?"

Lily added a sprinkling of herbs to the pan, the word adoption knocking around in her head like it had countless times in the past. It didn't often surface now, but whenever it did it was at inopportune times, like walking down a busy street. Some middle-aged, dark haired stranger would pass by and Lily found herself looking back for a moment because a sudden firmness in her belly button told her to. From early on, she'd rehearsed all of the things that she hadn't inherited from the Carson's gene pool: from the surname 'Hicks' on down to the ears, to the dimples... the toes... even the asthma. Eventually, she had settled on one, resounding thought: I am loved. Why question it?

It was strange to step into the dim, dark past and scrutinize it because a virtual stranger had invited her to. She smiled at Joel. "They used to put on these adoption parties. One woman called me the 'cutest mistake in the room'."

"Wow," Joel said. "That was nice of her."

"Actually, there is one thing that always bothered me. Whenever I put my name to something, I can't put down a middle name. I never saw my birth certificate or the adoption papers, so maybe I don't even have a middle name."

"Never saw the papers even once? So, then you are...?"

"Just Lily Hicks."

"Alright then, 'Just Lily Hicks', I dare you," Joel said companionably, as though they had been friends for years, and Lily liked him for this. "I dare you to ask your parents all about it."

#  

By one am, it was apparent that Brendan had done some serious drinking before the show. When spoken to occasionally over the microphone, his words slurred. His entrée and main were well scored but he over-cooked his dessert.

The closing scores were cast. Team Salt ranked fifth. Looking on, Suzannah realized that her boyfriend had sabotaged his own game plan. During the after-show babble, she approached Brendan and embraced him, saying, "Still proud of you."

He nodded, unhappy and distracted, saying that he would shout the boys a couple of rounds at the bar. Not seeming invited to the after-party, Suzannah slipped away and caught a cab. It wasn't the memory of Arizona she had wanted to leave with. She'd imagined Brendan being smarter than this; she'd imagined having a more positive sway over him.

At the motel, the place was dark, lit only by the roadside Vacancies sign. Switching on the bedside lamp, she spilled the contents of her backpack in search of her ceremonial satchel. The items inside of it weren't the typical things she used for spell work, more of a travel kit: with a feather to represent the element of air, an incense burner to represent fire, a snow globe for water and freeze-dried Angelica for earth.

Suzannah blessed herself with oil, prayed a dedicatory prayer and set the items on the carpet at the corners of an invisible pentagram. She whispered a blessing over each item. "Lord and Lady, hear me now. Work your will. Show your power..."

Shortly, she sat back on her haunches and closed her eyes, bringing herself to center; and in her mind's eye projected there a mirror of the astral kind. It was full of panels and like an embattlement before her, and as she focused her energy on the panels, each one became a hot, dazzling white and she saw herself as unchanging, and invincible in their reflection: the vision shielding her from all negative energies.

She touched her forehead to the carpet. She would call on them, as allies. She called to them with full hope. "I call to the angel Uriel, keeper of the North. I call Gabriel, archangel of the waters of the West. I call Michael, fiery keeper of the South, and Raphael of the winds of the East; Keepers, hail."

The feather arose in a small, uncreated updraft and settled back down. Suzannah touched both palms to her forehead, cradling into herself, her eyelashes trembling with her urgency. "Hallowed Spirits everywhere of fire, water, earth and air; hear me speak this need, this hour. Illuminate your blessed power. Set my partner's thirst undone before he sees another dawn. Replace it with another creed: To trust himself is all he needs..."

#  

If you learn nothing else, learn this: magic works. This was what Suzannah taught in her workshops, over and over again. During the return trip from Arizona, it quickly became evident that her enchantment for Brendan had backfired. It made no sense to her, to someone who had lived and breathed Wiccan practices for as long as she could remember: always practiced with caution and with the deepest devotion.

She now realised that in her momentary distress she had worded the enchantment too loosely. The self-trust she'd asked for Brendan had manifested early the following day. So strongly, in fact, that it obliterated any of his natural logic. At breakfast, hung-over and irritable, Brendan slid into a booth at a roadside diner and hid behind his menu. Of the buck-toothed waitress he ordered a stack of pancakes with maple syrup and whipped cream.

"But, you're allergic to dairy," Suzannah pointed out.

Brendan laid down the menu. "I was puking half the night. Cream will line my stomach."

"I have antacids," Suzannah said, reaching for her bag.

"So, we're all sorted here?" the waitress asked. Brendan addressed the woman once more. "Double cream."

"You're fucking allergic!" Suzannah said.

"Hey, uh, that's not necessary," the waitress said, scratching a line through the order.

Brendan eyed Suzannah, licking his lips like a petulant child and chanting, "Cream, cream, cream..."

As the day progressed, the self-trust seemed to override ever further. Brendan ran three red lights because 'the time seemed right'. That evening, when the motorbike finally roared into Suzannah's driveway, she dismounted and lobbed her helmet at Brendan with all her might, yelling: "Asshole! I wish we were married just so I could divorce you!"

And Brendan had simply doubled over with laughter.

#  

Lily and Suzannah lazed on a picnic rug in the middle of the park, midday Friday. Suzannah helped herself to a chocolate brownie from the hamper. Lily did the same, but held the treat at eye-level. "I tried to resist you," she said. "Quite valiantly, actually. But clearly my willpower was no match for your sweet-toothed voice."

Suzannah smiled. "And people look at us and think I'm the weirdo."

Lily laughed. She let herself take in the scene. The grass was Bowling Green bright with beds of salubrious golden poppies set throughout. Some thirty meters away was a fountain the size of a single-storeyed house. Cardinals and blackbirds flitted eagerly in and out of the spray and flew relays between the branches of Sycamore and Black Walnut trees. A group of people had congregated just beyond the fountain and they threw a Frisbee amongst one another. Lily squinted. Matt Livingston's face surfaced between the others.

Suzannah followed her friend's gaze and said, "Who's the guy?"

"Oh, um, Matt. He's part of the whole church scene."

There was something secretive in the way that Lily's heart jumped, something she hadn't expected. She began to pack away the picnic gear.

"He's hot," Suzannah said. "As in, celebrity hot."

She examined Lily's face in turn. "And, you've been trying not to notice."

During this time, the youth dispersed. Lily got to a kneeling position to give her hand-wave some height and the action caught Matt's eye. With a bright look of recognition, he began to approach.

"It doesn't matter to me," Lily said. She'd run out of things to put in the hamper.

Suzannah clambered to her feet. "You're in denial."

"Stay! Why aren't staying?"

"Because I can't be bothered socializing with God," Suzannah said. They exchanged a hug and Suzannah shouldered her satchel, saying, "Phone me later. And maybe just face the other way while you're talking to him."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Go!"

Suzannah departed at a brisk walk as Matt drew closer. He did a joking, dying-marathon-runner jog for the final few yards to Lily and they both laughed.

"Hey! What's up?" Lily shaded her eyes and kinked her head at the picnic blanket. "You got time to hang out?"

"Sure," Matt said. He lowered to his haunches onto the rug. "Your friend kind of rushed away. Hope I wasn't interrupting anything."

"Oh, it's okay. Suzannah's just not keen on meeting Christians."

"I am other things, too," Matt said. "Tennis? I'm a dab hand at tennis..."

Lily smiled apologetically. "I will be sure to keep that in mind."

Matt changed position to lie reclining on his left hip. They rested a foot apart. Lily didn't want to know why she was aware of their exact proximity or why she suddenly noticed that Matt had perfect hands.

She cleared her throat. "Hey, so I've been meaning to ask you a few things. I'm taking the basics of philosophy at school."

"Yeah? I took a couple papers on philosophy before seminary, but I'm rusty. Refresh me."

Lily proceeded to explain A Priori and A Posteriori as best she could. Then she embarked on different terminology. "So, today I learned to differentiate between knowledge, truth, and belief. So, in a nutshell, truth is what is unconditionally, universally accepted to be a fact. Truth is un-subjective, so it can't be altered by someone's perception of it. It exists, in and of itself; so you could say 'liquid is wet' and know it to be a true statement because liquid is, in its existent state, wet. Knowledge, though, is - what is understood, in total, of any subject matter and established to be either true or false through a variety of methods."

Lily interrupted herself. "By the way, please stop me if this gets boring. I'd hate to bore you."

# M

Matt smiled, shaking his head. He plucked absently at grass blades. "I love your enthusiasm. You're making it all sound easy to learn, too, which it very definitely is not."

Lily didn't seem to know what to do with compliments. Her mouth did a little tug to one side and she laughed. Matt felt his own words sitting above his head in a bubble like a cartoon strip. He was made of paper; she, of trapped sunlight. And he was only partially listening to her exposition. He'd forgotten that he had anywhere else to be. The day had become her.

Lily was in the middle of describing 'belief' when he tuned in again.

"... And it's essentially where a person maintains that something is, or will be so, without justification of that belief. Say someone who is pregnant and believes they are having a baby boy. That person cannot possibly know that they will have a baby boy. It's a fifty-fifty chance. But, if that person winds up having a boy, then that person could claim they always somehow knew they would have a boy, and that is known as Justified Belief."

"So, what questions did you want to throw at me?" Matt asked.

"Well... in Christianity is there much of a place for philosophy?"

"Philosophy should take more priority in religious teachings, in general," Matt said. "I think religion suffers often for relying solely on theology. People are likely to run with their own interpretations and base it on very little of what's solid. I know that the questions of both the origin of life and the existence of death have been a mystery for all religions, for all people throughout time, as well as the instinctive desire to just... connect with the spiritual realm and a Higher power than humanity possesses."

Matt moved a hand through the air in loose circles. "Anything from the stone temples of Neolithic times to the painted trails that the Incans walked in ritual ceremony to - African voodoo dances and animal sacrifice, points to the fact that we would give anything to fully understand our existence. I think even modern fiction reflects the need by the masses for salvation; things like comic book heroes. We're never free of wanting to be saved from something by someone or something more capable than ourselves."

"True," Lily nodded.

Matt paused momentarily. "The point with Christianity in particular is that it's not just a 'head thing', it's a 'heart thing' as well."

Lily drew up her legs and hugged them. "Whereas the ancient Greeks saw a variety of very human causes for suffering, of course, like the result of misguided judgment, pride, betrayal, ignorance..."

"Yeah, and I think there's definite merit to that school of thought," Matt said. "Christianity's inherent message, though, is that every level of human suffering, rather than being pointless, is actually seen as a redemptive event in that it is witnessed by God Himself."

He stopped for a moment on a different thought. "Lily, have you thought about addressing these kinds of issues with your philosophy professor? My guess is that you've heard preachers preaching before. Maybe a lecturer can put it closer within your reach."

#  

Scott Baker shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the coat rack in Matt's foyer. He and Matt had arrived home at the same time. Matt led the way into the living room. Scott kicked off his shoes and planted socked feet on the coffee table, saying, "You catch up with Allan yet? He still wants his message critiqued for the inter-church rally."

Sinking onto the piano stool, Matt said, "No, I didn't. Lily took up most of my afternoon."

As Matt spoke, Scott had resumed reading a book he'd left lying face down on the sofa like the wingspan of a dead bird. When he heard this information he waggled his eyebrows mischievously above the book. "So?"

"We talked theosophy, the usual stuff," Matt said. "The cause of suffering and-"

"You sat opposite a girl who looks like that and you preached at her?"

In no mood for teasing, Matt said nothing as he slipped onto the piano stool. He studied the score on the stand and began to play. Crotchet, minim, semi-breve...

"It was meant as a joke," Scott said, then, genuinely, "Pity for you. About the ring."

"I've seen the ring." Matt stopped playing and stared at Scott.

Scott laid the book against his stomach. "What, you need me to go on? It's one thing to have a crush on her, Matt, but-"

"A crush?" Matt said. "What am I, thirteen years old? Give me a little credit here."

"She's a girl who is used to men that carry crushes. You saw them all at study group! Staring at her like she's the first woman they've seen in years."

"All I'm saying is, people buy rings," Matt said. "And rings aren't forever."

"Talk to me, man, this isn't you! You would never mess with another guy's scene."

Matt had shouldered forward over the keys so that all he could see was their whiteness. Whiteout conditions.

"Would you?" Scott asked, with a slow dawning in his voice.

Matt shut his eyes against the whiteout. He'd grow even colder here; maybe lose his sense of feeling.

"It's going to be about me this time," he said.

"Well, all power to you, but it's never just about one person, is it?"

Matt stared across the room at the wine rack, with bottle after gleaming bottle slotted there. He favored the Rosé from Simi Valley. He was tired of enjoying things alone.

"It's that bad?" Scott asked. "You never even said."

Matt squeezed his hands through his hair and rested elbows on the piano keys, sounding incoherent notes into the room. "You said how the other guys are," he let out. "But, it's so much more than that. It's her humor, and-and this organic way of looking at life." He shook his head at Scott. "There's no other word for it, she just makes me feel... homesick."

Chapter 8

Once upon a time there was a wealthy, sterile couple looking to adopt...

Lily remembered being organized into the pack of children; tiny shoulders in second-hand t-shirts, all wanting ownership.

'Smile!' Babs Teague told them. 'These are lovely people and today they may just take one of you home!'

There had been actual exclamation marks at the end of each statement. The promise of it had rested like a lollipop in Lily's cheek and she had drawn on it all day to make it last.

Babs Teague, with her concrete colored hair, was the most smile-shrinking carer at Clement Street Children's Home: her permanent expression as if she'd walked into a room expecting to find a seat reserved for her and realizing someone else had taken it.

There were snippets of time, like Lily held a film negative in her hand, each section smaller than how it felt at the time.

After a bath and being wrapped in towels with Clement St Home written across them in blue: rides on an empty meal trolley with a wheel that flipped in useless circles and never got fixed. Sister Stacy with her perpetually cold hands, carrying Lily up and down the main corridor at night when Lily's asthma was at its worst.

The nun's work shoes squeaked on the linoleum, and most often on those asthma affected nights they ended up in the staff room together where the Sister made herself a hot chocolate and let Lily pile in the marshmallows, beginning Lily's lifelong love for the sweet treats.

In December, Santa Clause boomed into the Home living room and most of the kids were terrified, scattering out into the corridor. There were seldom any men in sight, and never one like this - bright red clothing and with no proper face, like a vertical fire engine. Lily was set on Santa's knee and when asked what she wanted for Christmas, she'd answered, "Tacey."

Santa Claus looked askance at Sister Stacy, and the woman compressed two hands on her chest with a sad smile for 'me'.

Some of the kids disappeared for good from the cot room, with families in family sized cars waving and pulling out down the driveway. Some kids went and soon returned. They always had the same name: Foster.

Then, one day, just like that, Lily was taken away in her own family sized car, and lived with a family in a house. They said, "Call us what you like."

She'd seen too many Mommy and Daddy displays. It was just too ordinary. So she called them Nanny and Poppa and they were timeless. Unsure if she'd be allowed to stay forever, she memorized everything in the house. She woke up every morning to eat anything she liked! Not just oatmeal or toast that had long since gone cold. And the towels in the bathroom had flowers on them instead of blue words!

Life came in exclamation marks: but her own exclamation marks this time...

Five years old at the beach for a family outing, she'd been adopted two years now. Grace and Beau took her to the water's edge and held her hands so that she was hammock-ed between them. She felt the sand eroding beneath her toes.

"An-nd jump!" her parents said in unison. Lifted high as the waves rushed in, she laughed and looked up into the archway of their bodies. The sun glinted off Nanny Grace's gold necklace. Poppa's stomach was as soft and white as unbaked dough.

Later, she dug a gigantic hole in the sand and buried her father beneath the sand 'til only his head showed. Dana built a sand castle with Grace close by. Lily picked up her yellow bucket and headed for the waves, determined to pack her father down so hard that he could never leave. His head would be hers to kiss whenever she pleased.

She wandered in the shallows of the Pacific Ocean humming to herself. Not far away, a man and a woman were kissing, waist-deep, and two boys pretended to drown one another. She began to sing as she waded, wondering why the water made her feet look bigger. Soon, she looked up to find her family - gone. She couldn't breathe, seeing all the beach umbrellas, hampers, swimwear and legs in a multi-colored jumble.

A passing stranger tapped her arm. "Are you lost, honey? Where's your Mommy?"

Clutching the oversized hand, Lily retraced east. The yellow bucket was heavy: so heavy. She tried not to shed tears yet the scenery filled up with water, right up to the sky.

"Is that her?" the voice encouraged.

A set of arms waved rapidly into the letters X and Y in the distance...

The drive home was always the best part; everything smelled of sunshine and Poppa would hand the map into the backseat so that Lily could choose the route home. She hunted out shortcuts and would eventually press a finger to some inky line and say, "Next right is Wilson."

Dana, who had been restless for a while, piped up. "Daddy, Lily always gets the map."

"Well, you take a turn, sweetheart," Poppa said, in his gentle way. Lily handed the map to Dana, whose eyes said 'I'll take it from here'.

Grace reapplied her lipstick in the sun-visor. She looked like a movie star but without the conceit, owning tanned skin and a head of hair lighter than a field of maize.

Lily relaxed to watch suburbia passing by, seeing apartments give way to bungalows as the sun dipped lower in a custard sky.

"Uh, take two streets up on the right," Dana said.

Strangely, then, she had sent Lily a broad smile. Dana never smiled at her. Ever. Lily had simply stared back. At play, whenever Lily won a game, Dana would often hiss, 'Mom and Dad could always swap you, y'know.'

Once the car cornered Clement Street, the string of housing plots abruptly ended at an enormous brown brick compound. It squatted there, low to the ground and spread out like an elementary school, with automatic iron gates bearing the sign Clement Street Children's Home.

Dana said, "Look, everybody!"

Lily felt her heart sink right down to her stomach. She needed to go sick, but couldn't talk. Grace said, "Oh God," and really meant it. Beau sped up the car. Grace angled around for a view into the backseat. "Dana Louise, you know darn well what that does to her. She still thinks she'll have to go back some day!"

Dana hugged the map to her chest and looked on with no particular expression. Soundlessly, Beau reached over into the backseat and smacked Dana on the thigh. Her eyelids sprung wide with shock. Her father had never so much as scolded her. Beau eyed his eldest daughter in the rearview mirror. "You should take a good hard look at yourself, missy."

Dana slumped in her seat, blinking back tears. Grace and Beau spoke together in low voices. Lily unclipped her seatbelt and shimmied down to the floor of the car and put her palms on the seat, resting her cheek against her hands.

"We're on Maricopa Drive, Dimples. Is this the way we should go?" Beau asked.

"Mm-hm," she said drowsily, her eyes drifting shut. Her father didn't need a map, after all. She would simply trust that he knew where he was going.

#  

Lily heard the television narrator as she entered the den in her parent's home. "... So it seems they are not exactly flying, at this point. The Monarch butterflies are actually being blown into a new life..."

Beau knelt on the carpet applying carpet glue to torn fibers. Lily stooped to kiss her father on the cheek. "Hey. How was your day, Poppa?"

Beau looked at the glue nozzle. "Uh, quite pleasant, actually."

Lily laughed, landing her study bag on the sofa. She cornered into the kitchen to see her older sister seated at the table with Grace.

"-And the puppy chow is in the laundry," Dana finished saying as Lily entered. Grace sat slicing fresh pineapple onto a platter and she called greeting over her shoulder. Lily hugged around Grace's neck, staring at Dana. "You're going away?"

"Phil and I are going on a couple's retreat through church," Dana said. "My friend's sitting for Meghan."

"Oh. Okay." Lily dragged up a chair for herself. The aura had always surrounded her sister: femininity, and a strong sense of having - instinctively - made the right choices in life. She had been an A-grade student, prom queen, virgin bride; nothing amiss, nothing a Christian parent could rebuke. In response, it surfaced in Lily; the confusion of trying to get along with her sister and simultaneously trying to stay out of her way.

Grace sprinkled salt onto the fruit to dull the mouth-cutting effect of fresh pineapple. Dana reached for a slice and cradled it in a napkin to catch its juices. "Anyway, after the latest one," she said, picking up from a previous conversation, "we're seriously looking at IVF."

Lily gained looks when she spoke. " 'The latest one'? You've had miscarriages?"

Grace answered first. "She's a Carson, honey. Faulty tubes run in the family."

"I had no idea. That's awful." 'She's a Carson'. So, the problem will never be mine.

"Is that why you adopted me?" she asked of Grace. "Because you couldn't conceive after Dana was born?"

Dana got in ahead of Grace. "You never wondered why I was eight years old when you came along as a three year old? It's not exactly the sort of age gap someone plans. I realize that Mom and Dad told you the story about the four chairs, I just figured you would revisit the facts when you became an adult."

Grace sent her eldest daughter a thin-ice look, and Dana simply showed her hands, saying, "Well? She did ask."

"Once upon a time, there was a table with four chairs; but there were only three people to fill them. One day, the people decided the fourth chair simply had to be filled. They wanted a little girl, but not just any little girl. She had to have dimples! After all, nobody can be sad when a person with dimples smiles their way. So, the three set out hunting, in this building and that, trying to find that little girl..."

Lily stood, collecting the pineapple platter with a soft sentence. "I'll go and see if Poppa wants some."

# G

When Lily had disappeared, Dana said in an undertone, "She should be told sometime."

Grace sighed. "'I expected it to be a process with you girls. I did. But, twenty-five years on... sweetheart, you could at least try!"

Dana rose from her chair, saying, "The thing is? I am trying. Look, are you really okay to feed Max?"

"I'm happy to do it," Grace said, getting up. She studied Dana, this pretty young woman defined by propriety and collectedness. "If I told Lily the truth, even you wouldn't wish it on her, the damage to her self-worth."

"Of course I wouldn't," Dana answered. "But, admit it. Part of the reason why you withhold the truth from Lily is because it also protects her adoration of you and Dad."

#  

Twelve years into their relationship, Curtis had discovered that it wasn't possible to love everything about his other half. Lily had these personal habits that irritated him, a lot of them only small things that had somehow doubled in size over the years. Her habit like leaving the lids on jars only halfway tightened so that when he grabbed a jar from the fridge it would often crash to the floor and leave a mess to clean up. She left damp towels on the bed after she'd washed her hair. She left bread outdoors for the birds and they unfailingly pooped all over the patio, giving him an extra job to do on the weekend. If Lily had had an extra hard day at work and was in need of something before the morning, she would actually go to the local Seven Eleven wearing slippers.

Of recent times, Lily was off to find a Higher Being, too. He wouldn't raise that subject but he knew the way his own mind operated; and even though he'd deny it if questioned, he was definitely keeping score...

Late that Thursday evening, he arrived home from work. He saw Lily seated at the kitchen table with her hair hanging forward, like a cowl, around her cheeks. Her head was bowed and there was a black book on the table before her.

Is she praying? He thought, and he had to say it. "I hope you're not praying. Especially not for me."

Lily's head turned in his direction. She gathered her hair back, smiling half-heartedly. "How would you know if I was?"

"Just don't that's all."

"I was... rehearsing my dissertation, actually."

Teaching degree. The moment fell flat around Curtis, stung a little on the way down. I'm acting like an asshole.

Lily carried on the conversation. She was good at thinking on her feet, something he had never perfected himself. He just developed a solid welt of anger in his stomach and wanted to leave, punch it out on the speed bag or take a run around the block.

"We talked about space," she said, emphatically. "About giving each other space."

"I'm not in your space. I'm standing right here."

She drummed her fingers on the table, speaking to the wall opposite her. "Don't do this."

"Do what?"

"Act like you're twelve years old! You know what I meant. So, what is this, the Republic of Curtis, now? Are you threatened that I'm thinking? Or, are you just threatened that I might not be thinking like you?"

Lily got up from her seat, swiping her hands through the air. "I-I can't do this right now."

"Oh, so you're going," Curtis snipped.

Lily turned back. "If I'd had the chance to explain, I would've told you that Nanny Grace is going to a potluck tonight and she needs me to keep my father company for the evening."

"Oh, good. Great. So what about dinner? I'm on rations now?"

Lily spoke as she went, "It's in the fridge! Heat and eat."

That night, Curtis went to bed with a headache, having spent thirty minutes on the speed bag, putting all his anger into the sweat and the pounding of his gloves. He imagined the bearded outline of a so-called-Jesus in the red leather bag, the Jesus from historical depictions, and he wanted to pound the guy away so that Lily and he could return to happy oblivion.

When Curtis awoke, he felt on the other side of the bed. It was an empty cold. By the clock, it was midnight. He trailed throughout the house until he found Lily in the living room. She was cross-legged on the floor with an open book lying in the canyon between her thighs. She looked up at his arrival and smiled dimly, resuming her reading.

Curtis noticed a red inhaler cupped loosely in one of Lily's hands. He sank down beside her. They traded a quick, no-eye-contact kiss. He began to rub her lumbar area, back and forth, like he was wiping some slate clean.

"Am I the reason you've been having a lot of attacks, lately?" he asked against her forehead.

Eventually she said, "Yes and no."

"Can I choose which one?" Curtis joked.

# L

Lily smiled and quickly looked back at her book so that Curtis wouldn't see the doubts within her. Her partner smelled of sleep and a day that was long over. She wanted to explain it to him; how it was as if they had become de-magnetised, and for every step that she took toward him, he took a step back. She played with the corner of a page, glancing what was written. "Joel and I were talking about the origin of the species. Do you believe that the world started with a bang? That we were all monkeys once? Christian upbringing aside, it just goes against the grain for me."

Curtis shrugged. "Y'know, I don't... I don't have a grain. Honestly."

"But, there's a monkey, right? So where are its parents? Where is the other monkey it mated with to produce an entire evolutionary chain?"

"Beats me."

"Joel argued that all organisms likely reproduced a-sexually, not sexually, at the beginning of time. But, if we're all the product of a single cell organism, there seems little scientific evidence to explain why some animals reproduce differently to others."

Curtis yawned. "How come you've been having more chats with the Freak?"

"Babe, c'mon, he's not..." she grew a smile. "Okay, he is unusual. But, with the sort of life he's had? It's no wonder."

"Everyone has a past they need to get over," Curtis said. He reached out to hook a piece of Lily's hair behind her ear. "Just don't give him the wrong idea, that's all."

"I won't," she said. "He's just so open with me, though, and it's fun to-"

At that, a stiff wind passed through Curtis's eyes. He moved back, bodily. "So this is my fault, now, because I won't discuss God? Or monkeys?"

"No!" Lily said, louder than she intended. She took a moment to temper her tone. "But, somehow you need to learn to let things change. Look, it's okay that you don't know everything. Neither do I. I just thought that if we talked evolution, it might be the kind of bandwagon you'd be keen to jump onto."

Curtis said, "I was enough for you once, before all this bullshit. I was 'it'."

Lily looked on, stricken. Seconds seemed minutes. "Is that honestly what you think? That if I dedicate my time to something new, I automatically love you less?"

"Well? You said it, not me." Curtis climbed to his feet. "Anyway, I've got a five am start."

Watching her fiancé retreat, Lily could no longer fight the words that had been brewing. "You hate your father, Curtis, but you can be so like him. It's your way or the highway."

Curtis came to a halt. When he turned, Lily didn't quite recognize her partner with the newly mangled gleam in his eyes. "Well, how's this for 'evolving'?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "There's the highway."

It was like being disembowelled by the hands that had blessed her only moments before. After Curtis disappeared, Lily began to wander the room. Every object in her space warped through tears that didn't spill. She saw all the things that they had paid for and all that they still owed.

"Shit." She drew in a strong, salted breath. Slipping down to the floor, she pulled up her knees and hid her face in her arms.

#  

Paul Durham welcomed Lily into his office late the following afternoon. The philosophy lecturer's workspace was little bigger than Lily's walk-in wardrobe.

"You're not pulling from class, are you?" Paul asked as Lily took a seat. "I've had two students leave this week already."

"Oh, no, it's nothing like that. I'm just working a double shift tomorrow and I really need the credits."

"So, you'd like the abbreviated version of religious philosophy?"

"Only if it's possible."

"Not a problem. We can't have you failing mid-terms for want of a little leniency."

Paul kept an amused eye on Lily as she placed her books on the ground, arranged a notebook in her lap and eyed him, pen at the ready.

"One of the most commonly used forms of argumentation is known as the Deductive Logic system. This is the means of identifying two premises and connecting them to a valid conclusion. Premises and conclusions are basically what we'd call 'assertive statements'. The conclusion is only ever true if the two premises are true."

Lily was bent in writing. Her script had already fallen behind the pace of Paul's tongue.

"I explain this to pave the way, as it were, for the foundation stone of how many philosophers form their argumentation, as is the case with Aquinas. Back in the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas was a noted theologian and philosopher. His most major arguments were broken down into what's famously known as the Five Proofs of God's Existence. Aquinas's view of God was taken along the lines of the Judaic or the Islamic God, a Being known as all-powerful, all-present and all-good, so this is to whom he's referring when he uses the term 'God'. We're only covering the first two proofs this week, and the others will be covered next week. Aquinas's first two proofs concern Motion and Causality."

Paul reached behind himself to his desk where he retrieved a tent-like frame with a set of silver balls suspended on nylon strings. He took the first ball between finger and thumb and released it. It rebounded against the other balls and set each one clacking back and forth in a noisy pendulum motion. Paul returned the object to the desk.

"If I cease to propel the first ball, the series of objects will eventually cease to move. Aquinas was echoing the teachings of Aristotle on the subject, who proposed that 'moving things are sustained by a force that keeps it in motion'. The idea is that the mover-movee chain must have its roots in an original cause, and this is a finite chain both into the past and into the future, by virtue of this fact."

Lily turned to a fresh page.

"Aquinas used the words Contingent and Necessary to further explain the mover-movee chain. He stated that everything within our world, and within the whole universe, is Contingent. All Contingent things rely upon one another to exist and it's only through this interdependence that they do exist. By contrast, a Necessary being is one that exists regardless; it doesn't need other things on which to depend to live.

"Because once the first object in the natural world falls every other object will gradually fall in succession, and because, clearly, the world is not empty, Aquinas argues that there has to exist at least one non-contingent being to sustain the natural world. This Being, he posited, was God. When it comes to the argument for Design I believe that William Paley, who echoed Aquinas's formulations with his own, explains it in terms we can best understand."

Paul sat back, linking hands behind his head. "Paley was an eighteenth century philosopher whose own theory of the argument from design is known as Paley's Watch. It went something like this. Imagine that a person takes a walk in the hills one day and is busy admiring the scenery when they suddenly stumble across a watch lying in the grass."

Lily's hand was like a claw from overwriting as Paul continued.

"That person might ask himself how the watch come into existence, and consider how the components of that watch could be compared to something like a nearby rock. Paley suggested that the likelihood of a watch simply evolving from random elemental forces was unlikely, whereas the rock could arguably have formed over countless millennia by virtue of the elements. Paley suggested that the watch's intricacies could point toward its being a creation of intelligence. The watch was made for one use and one use only; that of telling time. Clearly someone of intelligence had assembled the cogs and gears in such a way that the watch would fulfil this sole purpose."

Lily arched her back for relief, eyeing the now-still silver balls in their structure on Paul's desk.

"Paley then proposed that the same person who found the watch might also look about at the living world, where even microorganisms have components far more complex than a wristwatch. These microorganisms 'automatically' know how to exist, to survive and to propagate. Paley claimed that if a person were to argue that the watch could not simply have evolved over millennia, then that same person would have to contest that microorganisms could not have evolved, either."

Paul put his hands together with a light clap to conclude the session. "Likewise, if the existence of a watchmaker is a plausible explanation for the watch, then the existence of a Designer is equally plausible in explaining the existence of the living world as well."

Chapter 9

Four days following The Fight, Curtis climbed into the RX8 to begin his workday. As he started the engine he had his attention diverted by a strange sight on the passenger seat. A small soft-toy sat there, a plush silver donkey. A folded piece of paper was taped to its head. Smiling despite himself, Curtis retrieved the note and read Lily's handwriting: I didn't mean to be an ass.

They hadn't spoken of the argument since it happened; some unspoken agreement reached so that it became washed into the tide of every-day life. But, life had subtly changed yet again and things had cooled in the bedroom department for the first time in their relationship history. It was driving him crazy.

The house was perched ahead of him in the dawn light. He climbed out of the car and stole inside, entering the master bedroom. As he bent over Lily's shadowy form, she stirred awake.

She reached for him, bed-warm to the touch. "You got the donkey?"

"Yeah, I got it," Curtis said and he moved slowly over her like a fall of autumn leaves. "Then I got to thinking about the other kind of ass."

"Oh, boy," she smiled. "You sure know how to sweet talk a girl."

They whispered in laughs and between their kisses, Lily pulled away. Her fingers trailed around Curtis's mouth, somewhere for her to look rather than into his eyes. "I thought all these decisions would be small if I just decided it," she said, tearful now. "They're not small. And when you say those things, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Leave it alone? Act on it? We're all over the place..."

"Babe, it was just the heat of the moment."

They breathed and they blinked and were simply there, watching one another and waiting for middle ground. "Don't ever leave," he said.

And he felt it, then - a truly kind relinquishing in Lily's body language, so that there were no possible sides to take in that moment. And when Lily arrested him with a kiss he took all that he could get, because he knew... God isn't over with, yet.

#  

The ruling planet was Mars, the famous bearer of conflict, and the night skies of the month were under the watchful eye of the Goat. Spring was passing into summer. Suzannah hurried through her work, all hustle and no heart, feeling divided on every level.

She asked herself, where did I go? \- Once Anu, child of the goddess of plenty, child of a hundred mothers at a commune home. Her memories belonged to a string of truly golden summers, with the taste of harvest mead at a young age around a bonfire and arthritic old Alberta seated on a log with a Rebec nestled between her kneecaps, plucking the guitar-like strings with Old West tunes.

How the Redwood trees had lolled like so many girlish heads alive for the dance, faeries hidden in the green, her father and mother Loving beyond the bonfire flames. Suzannah looked on, hoping for a brother or sister to accompany her days, though there were children aplenty in the commune. Yet, no one belonged to anyone. In the dead of night, men and women stole quietly, purposefully, between cabins for a taste of love untried - or of love tried and found desirable. Children were shared into the care of anyone over the age of sixteen and taken to the Main cabin for yet another puppet show or nursed at a free breast, or supervised through the all-too-occasional hours of school work.

She had never been able to explain it to her mother, after the early days of friendship with Lily in middle school: how she had learned to grow roots as a person within the friendship. And how soundly human it felt to be wanted, for nothing more than that she existed, in that time and in that place.

Afternoon in the shop, business was quiet. Suzannah ran a fingertip along a row of books to realign them, watching her mother with red candles in-hand explaining their uses to a woman in a business suit. The color of the candles instantly informed Suzannah what magical need it concerned. Love. Rather, love trouble.

She pulled her cell-phone from her shirt pocket. Who is ever immune to love trouble?

No missed calls from Brendan, no text messages, despite breaking the enchantment and giving Brendan's senses back to their normal reign. Two weeks with no contact from him.

Her head was angry with him while her body missed him; the warm slide of their sex, the way he crunched fruit loops all on one side of his mouth in the mornings, making his cheek bulge: how his skin smelled like freshly ground pepper.

Lately, she got no sleep at all. Every night she took down the mortar and pestle and crushed Valerian root into a hot drink to knock herself out. She browsed the book bindings on the shelf absent-mindedly. 'Shamanism: The Complete Guide.' 'Divination, The Tao Oracle and More.'

She pulled the Oracle book from the shelf and smoothed it open with her palm, raising it to her nose to smell its new pages. Brendan had bought a book just like it the day that they met. Wicca was just a passing curiosity, Brendan later admitted. The statement had dented Suzannah at the time. He'd smiled and said he was too lazy for all that wondering; wasn't for it or against it as such, he'd simply dipped his toe into the water and decided not to swim.

Ester approached her as the shop door clicked shut behind the lovelorn woman.

"Control freak," she pronounced, folding her hair back and sticking it in place with a pencil from her pocket. She was smiling to herself, oozing that carefree kind of power few women owned; thin pity at the edges, as though love was a thing easily tamed if people only knew how.

Suzannah pulled up a stool behind the counter and focused on the pile of shop paperwork. Any minute now, her mother would start hunting. Ester could sense anything and everything, just as the moon had its eternal pull on tides. As if on cue, Ester reached out to touch her daughter's hair, saying, "You've missed your period."

She had guessed this before, explaining something to do with the chemicals of a woman's scent, some component missing that she could detect.

"It's nothing," Suzannah said, pretending to be absorbed in the Garden Supply invoice. x4 Mother Earth/Gaia stoneware birdbaths.

"Has Brendan been unfaithful?" Ester asked.

"Ma-" Suzannah said, and then wavered, seeing a mix of motherly concern and aloofness in Ester's face, a fine line for a daughter to walk. She slumped there on the stool, rubbing her temples in tender circles. "He just... he drinks."

"I see." Ester put her back to the counter and hoisted herself up to sit, declaring, "Well, you know what to do with a drunkard."

"No." Suzannah shook her head. "I know what you would do with a drunkard. But, Brendan is not Dad. Whatever Dad did, after all."

"What, you don't remember? All those whisky sours?"

Suzannah bucked upright. "I remember everything! Every single thing."

Every winter he took me whale watching at the Bodega Heads. "How can you even prove that Judd was my father?" she said. "Monogamy wasn't exactly a priority at the commune."

If eyes could slap, Ester's eyes did. "I just knew, alright? You watch your mouth."

Suzannah hung her head. She heard each word emerge from her mouth, new to the air and vulnerable in that way, shucking from a self-made pod. "To live in that place all my life, and then in a two-bit town where they knew us as witches..." she shook her head, "We were always moving on, as if that would fix everything."

She leaned one elbow on the counter and rested into her fingertips, making her hair fall behind them like an open tent flap. "Do you understand? What I'm saying?"

Dad showed me how to send smoke signals with a damp blanket; occasional puffs that went skyward like legless sheep. We slapped mosquitoes off one another. I had his blood on my hands.

Ester leaned forward, intently. "I was happy there, too. He beat a woman for refusing to sleep with him, okay? That's why we got thrown out of the commune."

Suzannah frowned, steadying into the news as best she could after a lifetime of unasked questions. She was about to say, "I wanted to know him!" but it came out differently.

"I wanted him to know me!"

Ester returned the stare, her initial anger cooling. "I couldn't change him. I tried. You must've known that I tried. In the end, I had to let him go. Sometimes that's all you can do."

"But, that's exactly my point. You never taught me how to hold on! Every single guy I meet, I run them off. It's not right. It's not normal!"

"It's life, Suzannah." Ester slid off the counter and moved away at half-speed as if the argument had sapped her of her vitality, yet she called out, "You were the one who didn't ask about Judd all these years because if you had, you would have discovered that you are nothing like him. Once you know that, you've only got a stranger to miss. And, like it or not, girly girl, that means the same goes for him."

#  

"God, what a day," Curtis complained. "You ever get sick of fat unhealthy people?"

Nikki Prebble sent hot water cascading into coffee mugs. She smiled across the staffroom at him. "You may be in the wrong job."

Curtis dropped into a chair, planting his feet on the coffee table; dispersing health magazines with the weight of his heels. A water cooler burbled next to him. It rained chilly tears of condensation down its sides, a container the color of jellyfish. "I was trying to convince this diabetic guy to look at a different diet plan and he wouldn't take me seriously," he said. "Even though he looked like a life-sized tub of instant macaroni with a head."

Nikki laughed, passing a mug to Curtis. "Maybe you're not sick of obese people. Maybe you're just sick of convincing people to change."

"Probably." Curtis flicked his eyebrows, muttering, "First work, now home."

"How d'you mean?"

"Oh, just... Lily's onto this whole 'finding God' kick."

"Huh," Nikki said, interest dawning in her tone. "So, does she preach at you?"

"No. Well, not yet." Curtis rolled the mug idly between his palms. "It's more like she wants me to look at it for myself."

"And she's tired of trying to convince you?" Nikki asked, facetiously.

Curtis rolled his eyes. "Women. You're all on the same side."

"No. I just think it's smart, that's all. Don't get me wrong it's not for me. But, more power to her. Too many people ask nothing at all."

Curtis gulped his coffee down. People were always stunned by how quickly he could down a hot drink and not burn his mouth in the process. He got up and leaned past Nikki to put his mug in the sink, brushing her arm as he did so. It was a slow, unspoken choice, eyes climbing bodies to finally meet. The chemistry had always been there, something that wasn't based on any real need. Curtis had long considered it a work hobby. "I ask things," he said. "Just not the same things she does."

"So?" Nikki asked, cocking her head.

The room had condensed in size. All awareness was of body heat: the inch or so between their hands as they leaned on the counter. He smiled, rubbing his neck, and he couldn't help another browse of her figure. Breasts like zeppelins, slender waist, arms sinewed and tanning-salon brown like a gym advertisement sprung to life.

"So, what?" he asked.

Nikki shook her head. "So, what things do you ask yourself?"

"Why I started this whole conversation in the first place," he joked. Nikki sipped from her coffee mug, staring a tightrope at him, her eyes the color of dimes. Curtis's cell phone beeped with a new text message and it made them both fall back to reality. He gave a washed-out smile and made for the staffroom door.

Nikki said, "If you're that worried about it, call Lily's bluff."

He turned, tapping the cell-phone against his thigh in a restless beat. "Yeah, how?"

Keeping her back to him, Nikki busied herself rinsing the mugs. "I don't know. Why not read a few books that support what you believe?"

#  

Matt had started remembering the little things about love and belonging, little things that he'd forgotten. The feel of his arm resting at the small of a woman's back while they stood side by side; paying for two to get into the movies or at a restaurant. Remembering to put the toilet seat down...

He took a good look at himself in the bathroom mirror that morning, trying to picture the way Lily might see him. He rubbed his hair around, stood side-on and pulled in his stomach, patted his cheeks, thinking, Does she like a guy clean-shaven or with a couple days growth? Have I started dressing like a thirty five year old who is trying to look like a twenty-five year old?

Last Monday evening Lily had returned to study group after several weeks' absence. Matt forced himself to spend little time or attention on her and as Merrin headed out the door at evening's end, she had hissed, "What are you doing?"

He had become so comfortable with the role of counsellor, of seeing the other person in need of help and in that sense, genderless - that he'd suddenly, genuinely panicked on sight of Lily and questioned everything about himself, not as a leader but simply as a man. He soon reverted to the old tactics he'd used to free himself of Penny.

Whenever his heart hurried at the sound of Lily's voice, whenever her face was recreated in his mind, he fell into his work or he fell into his music at the piano keys and word-by-word, chord-by-chord, he extracted her from everything.

He sang songs he'd either written or borrowed, as in previous years when he'd paid his way into seminary by playing piano in bars and cafes. Back then, he'd sung and played on synthetic keys while people chattered and ate, not really seeing him there, giving occasional scattered applause. Penny and Scott had been his faithful concert companions, clapping the loudest because they knew him or because they appreciated his music, or both.

As he reached the end of the second song, now, he smiled. While he sang and played, Lily's face vanished from the congregation. She vanished from cell group.

She is leaving. She is definitely leaving.

At song's end, he cleared off the stool and went to his laptop to continue working on a sermon, but he found no inspiration awaiting him. He decided on one more detour before settling in to make a good go of it. He travelled outside to the mailbox. The sun was on his back as he returned to the house, closely warm, like he was piggybacking a child. His thumbs milled through the paper trail, mostly bills, when he finally spied a handwritten envelope.

He stopped in his tracks, checking the sender. There was a hand drawn smiley face with Your Favorite Pesky Philosopher written underneath and his body went heavy all over, as though he'd been swimming for days against a powerful current and all he wanted to do was let go. Ripping the envelope, Matt slipped out a postcard sized invitation card. The typeface read: You're cordially invited to celebrate the engagement of Curtis Sloane and Lily Hicks.

On the reverse side of the invitation, he saw a handwritten sentence. Hope you can make it Matt! Would love everyone to meet you.

The mail fell into shadow and he looked up, surprised to find Merrin standing there.

"Oh, hi!" he said, lapsing the mail down by his side, but Merrin pointed around him as it fell from view.

"You got one as well?"

He shaded his eyes. "The invite? Yeah."

"Can I grab a ride?"

"Sure. Where to?" He moved toward the house.

Merrin laughed. "No, to the engagement party!"

"Oh." Matt dumped the mail on the foyer table. "I can't promise it."

Merrin followed him into the kitchen. "You don't know if you can take me? Or you don't know if you're going?"

"Why are you here?" Matt asked, but with a grin.

"For the laptop! I called last night. Remember? Anyway, back to the question at hand."

"I'll go and get the laptop," he said, baring a smile.

Merrin stood by as Matt collected the laptop and went about packing it into its satchel. She shook her head. "You're hooked on this girl," she said, meaningly.

Matt wound the power cord around his hand. "By the way, the password is-"

"-Chainsaw. I know." Merrin perched on the arm of the sofa. "Dude, I can't believe you're not talking to me about this!"

Matt buckled the leather straps together on the satchel. He was silent.

Merrin finally showed her palms. "Whatever. So, it's usually me asking for advice, but you know more about God than I do and I know more about men than you do. Bottom line? See her every chance you get."

Handing over the satchel, Matt said, "I'm not going to the engagement."

"Listen to me," Merrin said. "The first time you met that girl you changed. I saw it happen right in front of me! If you're sitting there thinking 'a girl like that comes along once in a lifetime', well, I'll tell you what. Guys like you don't come around often, either, and Lily knows it too."

#  

Joel was seated on the living room sofa with a box of beads in his lap, stringing different colored baubles onto a length of nylon.

Lily, ensconced in a beanbag, looked up from her textbook. "What are you making?"

"Bracelets, anklets, whatever keeps my hands busy," Joel said. "Drugs were more fun, but that's not what my counsellor said last year."

Lily propped her chin in her hand, watching him. "Do you keep them all?"

"I make them and re-make them." Joel jiggled one wrist downward to make a black bead bracelet slide into view. "Except this. It's my only keeper."

"You should try selling them at the markets."

"I might have to. I didn't get the call-back for that commercial."

Lily stared at Joel, curious about what he hid beneath all the blandness, sensing some undercurrent of electricity in him that was waiting, she sensed, almost on a timer. He'd shaved his head down to stubble. He constantly hid the pink marks of old injuries beneath long sleeves and he was back to living on carrots after a weeklong fad of eating bananas.

Quietly, she asked, "What made you get into acting?"

Joel smiled in his drowsy, distracted way, re-measuring a length of nylon around his wrist to ensure it fitted. "Pretty much the only good foster home I was in, the guy had done a movie with some B-list actors and he was trying to hit the big time again. I used to think he was an idiot dreaming like that, but... the passion rubbed off, I guess."

"What was-?" Lily hesitated and bent over her textbook again. "Never mind."

"What was my worst foster home?"

Their eyes met, weighing the moment. Lily clapped her book shut with finality, saying, "I need a break. Want to go to the Observatory?"

They took the stairs to the roof of the Griffith Park Observatory past one of the enormous domes that flanked either end of the glare-white building. Orange and purple and molten gold oozed down the walls of the sky to the sea. Too early in the evening to see stars, Lily slipped coins into one of the wall-mounted telescopes for a view of the landscape instead. The Los Angeles basin lay sprawled before them, flanked to the south by the Hollywood sign. The May Grey weather pattern had arrived in mist that rolled in from the Pacific ocean and left everything covered in flawless white, like milk down the inside of a just-drained glass. Hiking trails cut like oversized, discarded sandwich crusts throughout acres of pine trees.

Both Lily and Joel were silent, soaking in the scene, and Lily was grateful for it. She craved certainty and an uncomplicated touch, the way it was before the noise of one hundred decisions had rerouted the circuitry of her relationship with Curtis. Lately, she faked a headache or faked pleasure in the bedroom, and she blamed it on the bed. Curtis had flipped the mattress. Then, she blamed it on the pill. Curtis would have liked to blame it on God, but he no longer said so.

She couldn't understand how she was sick to death of Curtis's ways, with his stubbornness out of all proportion and his perpetual dissatisfaction: yet, still love every single hair on his head.

Joel released the telescope after his turn and relaxed against the wall. "My worst foster home-" he began.

"Oh, Joel, it's..." Lily shook her head. "You don't have to tell me. Please don't."

"He waited til his wife went to her Historical society meetings, then he stuck a war movie in the VCR and made me, uh, service him while he watched it."

Lily stared out over the panorama in shock, brushing at the corner of one eye. All the prettiness before her had drained. She found nothing appropriate to say, so she kept silent. Joel pattered the concrete parapet like an absent-minded drummer. He turned to her with new irritation in his demeanour. "You're someone who could give a guy the world and you don't even get a backrub from him."

"It's not... that simple. I'd rather we didn't talk about that. About me."

Joel shook his head. "Curtis isn't in love with you. He just likes that you love him."

It made her stock-still in that hugging breeze, like a slap to the face; so much already to decipher, a new doubt on the internal pile.

Then, Joel lightened up with a laugh, saying, "Have a break, have an affair! I'm free."

Lily squirmed through a smile. "Joel, c'mon."

"I'm kidding-g. But it would be hot, trust me. Just say the word."

Lily tapped the eye the telescope back and forth between her index fingers. "Curtis thought you might be gay."

"That I'm gay?"

"It's a theory," she demurred. "I don't know. He says things."

Joel found a pebble, held his arm back like a football pitcher and lobbed it with all his might, watching it sail into oblivion.

"Look, I-I'm not saying I agree with him," Lily said. "I try never to assume-"

Joel bore down on the parapet with both hands. "Sometimes? I hate you," he said.

It was indirect, as if he'd meant to think it rather than speak it. Lily frowned at him. He rounded and put on a high, singsong voice, like a woman rebuking a child. " 'Say sorry, Joel'. Sorry-y," he intoned, bugging his eyes, and he shone another smile with his perfect white teeth. His smile was telling her one thing while his eyes were saying something unreadable to Lily. In response, her blood surged in a fireworks burst through her body and fizzled as quickly. She returned the smile, but warily this time. "We should head back," she said. And, folding her arms, she made for the parking lot, walking a little ahead of Joel all the way.

#  

Row after row of books presented themselves to Curtis. They were sweating him down; truth and lies, what lives and dies...

Curtis hadn't set foot in a library since adolescence, and even then he'd only messed around with friends and copied diagrams from sexual education books until the teacher found them out.

He held no memories of childhood where he had asked pertinent life questions, of wanting to know how things worked or came to be. Whatever he enjoyed, he embraced. Whatever he disliked, he ignored. Whatever he didn't need, he scrapped.

Curtis looked down on himself at that moment. All he could see was exactly what he saw: a body standing in a building full of pages. He turned from the books and took a few strides, then hung back.

He had made the mistake of piquing his workmate's interest on the matter and Nikki was on the hunt during work breaks, wanting to know if he'd loaned any weighty subject matter to contest Lily. If nothing else, I can't resist a dare, he admitted to himself.

Scooping up three random books on Atheism, he made a beeline for the counter where a pimple-faced blonde teenager hummed to herself. She glimpsed the book titles and smirked at him. "Can I help you?"

He glanced from the girl to the books and back again. "What?"

"Those books don't exist," she said and laughed a high, carefree laugh as she scooped up the first book to scan it. "Like saying God isn't there," she said, over-enunciating. "It's a joke."

"Oh," Curtis said, with a flick of his eyebrows. "Funny."

The girl passed the second book over the scanner, eyeing Curtis with displeasure after her joke fell flat. "I hate to stereotype, but shouldn't you be out skateboarding or something?"

#  

Dinner in the oven, Lily had barely invested herself at the kitchen table to study when Curtis arrived home. They exchanged a quick kiss and as they separated, the front doorbell rang. At the same time, Joel walked in from the depths of the house and helped himself to a glass of OJ from the fridge.

Within minutes Curtis returned from the foyer, this time flanked by two business-suited males in their mid-twenties. They were shiny of skin, bright of eye, black books beneath their arms. Curtis looked smug as he swept an arm for introduction. Lily laid down her pen in preparation.

"Dion and James," Curtis said. "These guys are Mormons."

Lily smiled between the men. "Hey, guys."

Her smile lagged at Curtis's face, one hand hovering over her book. "I'm... kinda under the gun right now."

Curtis hitched a thumb at one of the men. "So, you don't want to debate theology with these two? Apparently they've got all the answers. They're confident enough to knock on doors after all."

Lily had nothing to say. The men smiled uncomfortably at one another. Curtis herded them toward the foyer with a parting shot. "Just helping you with what you believe, Lil."

Joel, observing the moment, said, "And I believe he's being a smart-ass."

Lily stared at her study guide. She couldn't read the words written there. Then, she showed her face and her eyes asked Joel to leave. Still grinning, he ducked away.

When Curtis re-entered the room, Lily could hardly bring herself to speak. "Curtis, that was just... so humiliating."

"I thought you'd be interested."

Lily supported her forehead on her fingertips. "God, this is just the beginning, isn't it?"

"You want it? You got it," Curtis announced, grinning at her. "I've got the books. We're doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Religious warfare? Give it any name you like." Curtis held his chin high.

He's looking - down - on me?

And all Lily could think right then was, in exactly seven days we will be engaged.

Chapter 10

Matt and the prison ministry team were bound northwest for Lompoc Prison at midday that Friday, late in the month of May. Once a month, the team made the drive to various State and Federal Prisons within a two-hour radius of central LA.

Leo Grant, Sol Vannote and Kevin Wong were deep in discussion about various inmates with whom they had developed a rapport over the years. Keeping his thoughts to himself, Matt only added amen when Paul offered a prayer for the time they were about to spend at the medium-security, all-male prison.

Double fencing and surveillance devices surrounded a prison the color of cinnamon. The ministry men were patted down and they gained security clearance by guards who'd known them for the past ten years. Nobody was beyond doubt, here. It struck Matt as it always did, observing the regulation-suited inmates and the spare hallways hemmed by endless cell doors: this is a place bereft of free will. It shrunk him. It stayed with him long after he had left.

The church service was held in the prison chapel. Inmates were hustled into the room by guards, some in handcuffs, finding themselves a seat and tossing the odd call with low, suspicious eyebrows: like an assembly line in a factory that only knew how to produce anger.

A range of prison officers hovered at the perimeters of the room and muttered into walkie-talkies, mace cans and batons strapped at the waist. Prayer was the ministry team's best defence, their only currency in a building-bound world of an eye-for-an-eye.

Kevin Wong always began the meeting with a little friendly patter, the jowl-cheeked father of four originally from China. To his mind, the room was full of endless possibilities; Heaven was simply waiting for each inmate to respond yes.

Leo Grant handed out songbooks. The retiree had spent a lifetime working exhaustively with LA's homeless population and its streetwalkers. Recently married Sol Vannote strummed on his guitar for what he liked to jokingly call 'ambience' before the church service started. He expected, rather than hoped, for miracles in the inmate's lives.

Matt was the one to deliver the message every month. The mantra that ran through his mind as he crossed the room to address the inmates remained the same. He had to see himself in the men sitting before him and know: no person is simply one thing...

Once the service drew to a close, many of the inmates stood to be returned to their cells. A young, fresh-faced guard approached Matt and extended his right hand. His deep-southern accent was heavy.

"How you doing? I'm Will. We, uh, we got a new inmate here on H-block. He ain't allowed to these services, though, ain't so good with crowds. But, I think he could use one of y'all, if you'd be keen to sit one-on-one."

"Sure," Matt nodded. "You want me to see him now?"

Will clapped him on the shoulder. "You game? He's a talker, I warn you now! Mosa my colleagues think I'm going soft, maybe 'cause Frank and me are southern boys. But come to that, I could just as easily be ashamed-a him. I just think, why not?"

Matt gave Kevin Wong a signal for I'm heading off and officer Will said, "Frank's already done a previous sentence for homicide and he's back inside for aggravated assault. But, don't worry about what he done, nome saying? Think about what he can accomplish with a lil help."

Minutes pulled into minutes as they walked the corridors and eventually stopped in front of cell door marked fourteen-sixteen. Will shackled the inmate through his cell door slot and guided him to the visitation room.

It was a drab, yet sizeable room with letterbox windows set high into the walls. Formica tables and chairs dotted the phlegm-gray linoleum, and a TV set was suspended in brackets in a corner of the ceiling. Matt dragged a chair beneath himself and faced Frank over the tabletop. Officer Will unshackled the prisoner and gave Matt a hearty smile. "Right outside when you need me."

He pointed a finger at Frank as he trailed away. "And y'all show some respect, you hear? He's a man-the-cloth."

Frank had greasy, neck-length black hair. He owned a nose at an extreme angle that suggested multiple breaks and had a chin prominent enough to serve food on. Before Matt could speak, Frank leaned forward and blazed, "I ain't innocent, okay?"

Mildly taken aback, Matt chose to make no reply. After a pause, Frank said, "I'm not one of those bastards who cry all day, 'I'm innocent! Lemme out!' I know what I done, and you ain't got a thing on me. Hell, mosa people outside should be in jail! Just some sins ain't the kind they design jails for, sins of the mind, sins of bee-trayull." He nodded, satisfied with his own conclusions. "Your turn'll come, too, preacher man, just you wait. Don't be sitting there thinking you got it made. Your sins'll show in time."

Matt looked the man in the eye, still waiting.

Frank unfurled his long legs beneath the table, leaning back. "So, man, what... what you want?" he agitated. "You gone save my soul? Make me say, 'Oh thank you, Jee-zuss, you gave me a new life?' Well, I tell you what, friend, Jesus ain't got nothing to give me that I want. A new life becomes an old life before you know it. I've heard all that bullshit before, trust me on that."

Matt nodded, staring into the shiny-worn table surface. "I want to share something. It won't take long. Then I'll leave. Is that okay with you?"

It was Frank's turn to be unsettled, unused to being asked permission. "Fine," he said.

"Are you familiar with the song 'Amazing Grace'?"

"Course I am," Frank disdained. "Attended church all my growing life."

Matt settled forward in his seat, nodding. "So, the song was written by John Newton. This guy grew up in the early seventeen hundreds and he worked on a slave ship from a young age"

Matt put his fingertips together then expanded them, in explanation. "The men who ran these ships essentially lived like mercenaries. They treated the slaves however they wanted and answered to no one. The conditions on these ships were such that up to a third of these slaves died before they reached their destination. I'm talking - three hundred on board and only one hundred walked out."

He hesitated, as Frank grew more and more dour. "So, entering this world, John Newton learned to live as he pleased. Then one night a storm struck up, so fierce, that John feared the whole ship would capsize. He got to his knees and he cried out, 'God, have mercy on me!' Later, he claimed that this was the first time he'd felt a direct intervention from God in his life. He called it a 'great deliverance'. The ship was saved. Do you... want to know what John Newton did for the following ten years after that night of deliverance?"

Frank raised one eyebrow, hangdog style. "He went and spread the-word-the-Lord?"

Matt shook his head. "No. He ran a slave ship."

Frank instantly sneered. "You telling me that he did exactly what he done before? What you got there's a story goes in a circle, my friend, and you're just wasting my time."

He tipped his head back and hollered for Officer Will, while Matt pressed on. "He did exactly what he'd always done. It didn't stay that way, but the fact remains-"

"So wit's yer point?" Frank said, thrusting his chin out in challenge.

"That even God can't change us," Matt said, plainly, "If we won't let him."

Afterward, as Matt and the ministry men closed in on the visitor parking lot, his cell-phone rang. Scott's number showed and he didn't sound his usual self when Matt picked up.

"Hey, Matt. Listen," he said, getting straight to the point. "You know that person who keeps calling your home and doesn't say a word?"

"Yeah?"

"They rang again and spoke this time."

Matt keyed the car door open, sliding into the driver's seat. "What's with the suspense?"

"Matt, the caller... it was Penny."

#  

Suzannah took the pregnancy test kit from Lily without a word. They stood barely a foot apart in the foyer of Suzannah's flat. At first, it had been hard to take Lily seriously: in the middle of a face-painting afternoon with the kids at work when Suzannah sent the SOS text, she had arrived with a giant butterfly painted on her right cheek.

Lily said, "So, you're sure you're not just late?"

"I'm incredibly sure that I'm not just late," Suzannah reiterated.

"God, what will you do if you are? Has Brendan been back in touch?"

"No, not since Arizona." Suzannah held the kit high above her head, winning-ticket style, with false confidence. "Here goes."

She trailed down the hallway and disappeared into the bathroom. The words c'mon, c'mon, c'mon repeated through her head on a loop as she watched the test stick. Impossibly, a new world was imagined. There had been no other Wednesday like this. No other woman in history had surely felt it this keenly before: oh love, oh fear.

Startling mental slides of labor pain and baby-naming books... diapers...

Lily's voice sounded from the other side of the door. "Anything yet?"

"No. Oh, wait!" Suzannah swallowed hard, rechecking the small cellulite window. Rushing at the door, she yanked it open and practically launched a hug at her friend.

"What?" Lily said, holding on tight. "What?"

"Negative! It's negative!"

"Oh my God, don't do that."

They separated. Suzannah held two hands over her nose, steeple-like, blinking back tears. Lily folded her friend in another, softer hug. "Oh, I'm sorry, sweet pea. It's okay."

Suzannah nodded into her palms, sighing. "It just could've been so bad."

At that moment Suzannah's cell-phone jingled in the pocket of her black shirt. She spied the familiar number and picked up, sniffling. "Hello?"

"Suzy Q," Brendan answered, as if - all Suzannah had had to do was ask and he would have acknowledged the hurt a long time ago: over a month ago. But there was a slurping sound down the line and the clinking of ice cubes in a glass and Suzannah's smile drained away. She heard voices mingling in the background.

"Are you drinking?" she asked, pulling the phone away from her ear to double check the cell-phone's clock. Two pm. The bitterness of repetition descended on her with no formal invitation.

"Why would I call you if I still had the same shit going on?" Brendan said. "It's cola. You need to start trusting me."

Suzannah's fingertips blinked outward, a small explosion. "I'm trying!"

"This is you trying?"

"Yeah, it is actually." She rubbed one eyeball too roughly; saw unlucky stars.

Brendan said, "You can drive people to drink, you realize."

All at once, Suzannah saw herself and her parents in a melting pot in her own head, a combustible mix of control and weakness. Her head began to tell her heart something new. Forget what you think you know, for Brendan's sake, and for your own sake. Make a different kind of history to remember. It doesn't have to be identical to the past just because your fear tells you it is.

Another minute elapsed before she said, "You want to come over tonight?"

"Would that be okay with you?"

All of her longing pushed to the fore. Suzannah couldn't keep it from her voice. "Of course," she said. Then she gave her quick, husky laugh, as if all Brendan had had to do was ask and she would've agreed long ago - over a month ago - that it took a jerk to know one.

She had not long ended the call and explained it to Lily when the cell-phone rang again. The call came from Every Witch Way.

"I found a note on the shop door," Ester said in greeting. "It said you'd be back at one."

"Oh. Time got away on me. I'll be there soon."

"You sound a little perkier."

"Lily's here."

"She is? Actually, I want a word with her if she's free."

Suzannah's eyes sprinted to her friend's face as Ester continued. "I've been having a string of dreams lately that always somehow involve Lily. I took it as divine prompting so I put out the cards this morning."

"And?"

"And, I'd like to speak with her please."

Suzannah dutifully handed the phone to her friend. After a few nods and polite agreements and rubbing a preoccupied finger along her lips, Lily rang off. She handed back the phone, watching herself do it. "So... apparently something horrible is coming my way if I don't 'change my path.' "

"Give me the exact wording."

"The tower? I think she said?" Lily replied, vaguely.

"But, how was it placed?"

"Upright? I don't know. Isn't that the way towers usually stand?"

"Lily." Suzannah rarely used her friend's name in full. It focused them both. "When the Tower appears in a Tarot reading, it indicates conflict and catastrophe. If the tower is what we call 'reversed' it's not so bad, but-"

Lily shook her head. "Ester didn't say the word 'reversed'. Suz, look, I know you and your Mom aren't happy that I started attending church and everything, but I thought-"

"Hey, no, it's not personal," Suzannah reassured. "I can see why you'd think that, but Tarot readings can't be personal otherwise it clogs the psychic ability to get... a... clear reading," she faltered, suddenly aware that she sounded like a tutor while her friend stood there, confused and a little hurt. "God, Ma should never have done that. Told you straight out like that. I'll get her to fill me in this afternoon, okay? It'll be fine. Don't worry."

Lily shouldered her handbag. "Okay. I should head back to work."

Suzannah followed her friend to the front door. "Thanks," she called.

Lily tapped down the steps and waved out as she went for the Oldsmobile, but despite Suzannah's best efforts, despite the lack of pregnancy and her reconnection with Brendan, she couldn't shake the feeling that her mother could be right. She'd had her own nagging sense, of late, that they were all on the precipice of something new: something that she didn't welcome - yet didn't know how to chase away.

#  

Curtis flung the speeding ticket onto the kitchen table and went to the garage for a workout. It was his second speeding ticket that week. Lily had no idea how bad the situation had become with his finances.

He donned his gloves and knocked his knuckles together, forcing concentration on the bag. Tipping his neck in stretch directions and circling his shoulders, he began the steady rhythm with his padded fists. Left, left, right, right. Left, right, left, right. The leather bag made a tickety-tick sound as it swung on its hook.

He followed the bag session with a jog around the block and, upon his return, was greeted by the woman next door who stood watering her garden. She'd just moved into the neighborhood: some heiress from Hungary, apparently, with chin fluff for miles. He waved because she had waved first, but he wasn't going to stop for a chat. He'd leave those social graces to Lily. In the kitchen, he downed a glass of water. Then another. The speeding ticket sent out vibes from the nearby table. Shit. Goddamn cops. God. Damn. God... damns.

He hadn't had a chance to open the Atheism books. He hadn't created an opportunity to do so, either, and Lily hadn't breathed a word of religion in a week. As if on cue, his cell phone buzzed with a text. Lily didn't believe in modern text language. Words were far too important to her.

Have late philosophy lecture, babe. Eat without me. Loads of veges to make a pizza xx

He sent tap water flooding into his glass and knocked it back like a marathon runner. After all, this could be a marathon...

He headed for the living room and pulled a book from behind the sofa where he'd kept it concealed. He had barely settled with it when Joel emerged from his bedroom and trailed through the living room to the kitchen.

"More carrots?" Curtis asked. The guy's skin has taken on an orange hue, lately.

Joel smiled but flipped his middle finger as he went by. Curtis grinned. He decided to turn to a random page, reading the first paragraph that caught his attention. As he read, he scratched a hand through his hair and left it resting on his scalp, squinting at different paragraphs and sentences in turn. One page along, Curtis gritted his teeth against a yawn and decided to leaf through a raft of pages until he picked a random page toward the end of the book. Over-long, complicated words vied for his attention and, collectively, made less and less sense. He could not even will himself to care. At the end of the following page, he officially gave up.

"Oh, fuck it!" He tossed the book to the floor. Retracing through the living room and catching Curtis's contemptuous gesture, Joel said dryly, "More brain strain?"

"Hey!"

Joel looked surprised at the force of Curtis's tone. Clearing his throat, Curtis said, "I want to talk to you."

The idea only arrived as he spoke. Joel stood munching a mouthful of something.

Curtis stood up. "The board's increased as of next week."

Joel glanced balefully around the room. "You're kidding? I can barely make it now."

"Well?" Curtis shrugged. "That's too bad."

"You don't get it. I had my hours cut back at the pizzeria. I had to hock my books, man."

Turning to go, Curtis said, "It's an extra fifty a week."

"That's what you and Lily agreed to?" Joel asked, and it stopped Curtis where he stood.

It was Joel's turn to shrug. "That's what she said? An extra fifty bucks? Because she knows my problems with work and half the time I don't get casting re-calls either."

"Lookit," Curtis said closely, "I don't give a rat's ass if you can pull on her heartstrings, okay? Facts are facts. This isn't carrot town, bro: it's LA. Either you come up with the extra money or we'd need a months' notice in writing."

It felt supremely, glowingly good to vent on the ratty little fucker with his back-alley-knock-up face. 'This isn't carrot town, bro: it's LA.' What a fucking good line! He was virtually patting himself on the back when Joel said, "Well, I guess this is it then. I'll write the notice."

They stared it out for a minute. Then as Joel went for his bedroom door he said over his shoulder, "And just for the record? You're a prick."

#  

This is supposed to be over. As Matt drove home from church that evening, he felt the headlights of oncoming cars spear his face like laser beams pointing out a fool. He had been working late in the hopes of losing himself in it.

He swung the car into the garage and parked, striding toward the house. Scott was ensconced in the living room, watching TV, and he put the program on mute when Matt appeared. From beside himself, Scott picked up the house phone and wiggled it in the air, saying, "She rang. Again."

Matt threw himself onto the larger sofa, staring lengthily at his friend.

"Why won't you call her back?" Scott said. "And explain it to me like I don't know the situation, like I'm a stranger. Because I'll tell you something right now, I am not going to keep fielding these calls. They are - truly awful."

"She was the love of my life. Was. You want to know what else was 'truly awful'? The months I spent ringing her phone and calling at her apartment and finding she was out, or busy, or had eventually left! What could she possibly need from me after five years? To officiate her wedding, or to bury some family member?"

"Oh, like she only loved you in your ministerial capacity," Scott said, caustically.

Matt groaned and rubbed hands down his face. His speech was a mutter. "But, you're right. Better sort this out sooner than later. Did she leave a number?"

Scott dug in his jeans pocket for a scrap of paper and handed it to Matt along with the telephone. "Luck, buddy," he said.

Travelling down the hallway into shadows, into quietness, Matt stopped in his tracks. He pressed his forehead to the hallway wall. Mentally he conjured Penny's face from the dark ages, yet it was in the present somehow, too; like she was a song he hadn't sung in years but to which he remembered all the lyrics. He saw the lank brown hair and the splash of freckles across Penny's nose. He remembered how she hated crowds, and heights, and cruelty: how she'd taught herself to paint. Come back to me, but softly. Criticize me, but leave me intact.

He allowed the last evening they spent together to replay in his mind: back when everything he wanted came in realistic measures and when living had seemed almost effortless...

They spent the evening at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and took a cab back to his apartment. They held each other on the top doorstep. She would leave before the night was over, she always did. She smelled of travel and of sunlit trees and he kissed his thanks, thanks that Penny had chosen to breathe and to be beside him - of all men.

Somehow the night changed under their contact, their bodies escaping the jurisdiction of everyday duty and they kissed their way through the front doorway, butting the door shut and tracking down toward the bedroom as if beckoned. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, not something a Bible verse could shut down, a progression so unashamedly familiar: to live inside of their love for one another.

Afterward, their heads on pillows, Penny said, "What are you thinking about?"

"That I'm... almost qualified. Almost a minister," Matt had said.

Penny asked of the ceiling, "Was this the best possible start?"

As time wore on, seriousness returned to them, weighing the room like a second gravity and Penny slung both arms across her eyes. Her ruby engagement ring caught the dull light like a wink. Her lips worked as she fought tears. Matt reached out to hold her.

Penny pulled her arms away, sniffing. "Don't you feel bad?"

"I hate seeing you cry," Matt said. "Pen, I love you."

He said the words as he smoothed her forehead, planting each word. "God knows."

Penny braced one hand on Matt's cheek, seeming to comb through his expression, a minister's daughter well versed in the doctrine of pre-marital sex. At last, she turned onto her side, gathering the sheet about herself.

In the morning when Matt awoke, Penny was gone.

Back in the present, Matt sank down on his heels and dialled the number. His heart skipped a beat when a voice answered, "Penny speaking."

"Hey, it's... it's me," he said.

She sounded like she shuddered, something historic in every quaver. She laughed and it was laced with tears. "I was hoping I'd get through to you."

Matt studied the loop-pile carpet. He felt perilously thin. "I'm here, Pen," he said.

And she began to cry.

#  

Lily's thoughts were stacked like a cliff before her, thoughts in no particular order and represented by the pile of books on her study hall desk. Paul Durham was in full stride, positing that if one claimed God really did exist, His characteristics and attributes would then require closer examination to be 'equally provably existent'.

"The mathematical world," Paul stated, "exists in the 'objective realm', established as fact in both the actual world and in all possible worlds - which means all worlds which might have existed at some point in time, but fail to exist now."

Lily doodled an equation sign and wrote beside it, Five-plus-five will always equal ten. Mathematical subsets, each containing theoretical objects of only five elements exclusive to themselves, and with no other units present, will only ever equal the number ten...

A flotilla paraded before Lily's very eyes, then, in a hypnotic display: a flashing neon sign of the formula five-plus-five, a dog barking because all dogs were known and established to produce a barking sound: Curtis saying, 'There's the highway', and her mother asking, "If discovering God really matters, what are you actually willing to change?"

She cleared the thoughts with a shake of her head and she focused on Paul, willing herself to listen.

The lecturer shuffled his papers against the lectern and said, "Another philosopher, Immanuel Kant, argued that you cannot define the nature of something based solely upon its existence. Say I was to pull out a ten-dollar bill right now. The ten-dollar bill owns the value of an exact monetary unit. This ten dollar bill owns the same value whether it's in my pocket or not, and it has no inherent characteristics we can attribute to it.

"Let's put it another way. You can't place God in a laboratory for observation. Can't test or examine God in any way that could point strongly to the possibility that his is a presence morally superior to human beings. Therefore, does the concept of perfection only belong in the realm of subjectivity? Many ethicists now debate whether morality is something that can be considered as an Objective state - 'established fact' - instead of a Subjective state."

Silence. Someone coughed.

Paul gave a shrug and said, "Through logical argumentation, we learn that a Perfect Being is immutable; beyond influence of thought or belief. And our own minds are often most limited by these two areas of the mind: thought, and belief. I ask you to consider whether the essence of perfection - either through philosophy or science - can be truly understood or perceived by our imperfect human minds."

"I ask you to further consider that perhaps a Perfect Being is a balance between the best and worst conceivable attributes of the natural world's inhabitants: a reflection, if you will."

The supposition settled over every gathered head. Some students took notes, some wandered the room with their eyes; some chewed gum or their nails, and one was even nudged awake.

"Is Perfect Benevolence unknown simply because it exists in a benign state?" Paul asked. "To my mind, Benevolence must exist in a benign state if at all, because the world in its entirety would otherwise know benevolence at all times. Since we live in an imperfect world, this makes benevolence all the more difficult to pin down."

Paul looked down on himself, thoughtfully. "Here's a real-life analogy. I use a Contingent being as an example, but the point is more to serve as discussing Immutable Benevolence in layman's terms and its corresponding nature in the subjective realm. Now, as a child, I used to receive gifts from a grandmother I never met. She lived all her life in Europe. Yet, the gifts unfailingly arrived for every birthday and every Christmas well into my teens, up until the time my grandmother died. I knew that she existed because my father spoke of her often and because we both bore a part in her family tree, and because I was a direct recipient of her generosity. I ask you to ponder this, though, as philosophy should be something that we can really grapple with, instead of divining answers simply from past and published philosophers."

Lily clawed back her hair and returned to the task of writing.

"Do the gifts I received from Grandma Durham prove that she was only ever benevolent in her lifetime? Or only some of the time?" Paul asked. "Does the evidence of her benevolence toward me prove that no malice existed in her whatsoever?" Paul asked. "I will leave you to ponder these questions and tomorrow we look forward to a discourse on Possibility versus Conceivability." He paused and said, dryly, "Or we don't look forward to it. Either way, I'll see you all tomorrow."

And the study hall erupted with laughter.

Chapter 11

The night of the engagement party, Curtis seemed all-nerves, any antagonism over God temporarily forgotten. Lily adored him for his nerves and she flurried him into the bedroom where they made hasty, glorified love, all aglow for what they'd planned.

Lily emerged from the bathroom with her hair pinned and wearing a silk dress the color of winter daylight. It wrapped around her figure and was draped over one shoulder like a Grecian statue so that Curtis couldn't take his eyes off her. She fussed with his tuxedo and left for the kitchen to direct the caterers where to set their edible burdens down.

In the living room, amidst the festive Chinese lanterns, Joel asked of Lily, "Who's coming that I'll know? That black chick from the hostel?"

Concealing alarm, Lily shook her head and said, "Um..."

Curtis glanced between them. "What black chick from the hostel?"

"The one who gave me your number for boarding," Joel said.

And again, Lily flurried Curtis into the bedroom; but for worse, for distressed reasons this time, suddenly preoccupied with the drape of her dress, as Curtis demanded, "What the hell is he talking about?"

Lily sank onto the foot of the bed, running one fingertip like a globe in the air. "I don't... I don't know how to start this whole thing."

She ran one hand up the pillar of her neck; skimmed over the place where her pulse came through. "Okay. I-I went to a Bible study group with the people I met that first Sunday at church. One girl works at the hostel where Joel was living at the time. He wanted to live in the suburbs and I passed on our details through this girl."

"So, he didn't get our details from the paper?" Curtis asked, leaning in bodily to double-check.

"No. He didn't."

Curtis stared off. He shrugged at length. "I guess we're even."

"W-... how exactly?"

"You found the board advertisement in the newspaper by accident. I found this out at the last minute."

"Oh," Lily said. "I guess I just wasn't expecting you to be this calm."

"Me neither," Curtis admitted. He bent to examine his right shoe and rubbed the toe of it against his trouser leg to bring out the shine. There was a lapse in conversation. He stared at the bedroom curtains. "I hate those curtains. They're like motor lodge curtains."

Lily chewed the inside of her cheek. "I can pick up some samples this week."

"Dammit, Lil, it's going to be hard enough tonight with both sets of parents here."

"I know! Well, what can I do now? Look, think of it this way. You usually hate my friends anyway, so another one shouldn't make much difference."

Curtis smiled. "This is our engagement party. I'm supposed to be more magnanimous than that."

"I... bought plenty of light beer?" Lily said unconvincingly, and it was her last peace offering. With an unsmiling face Curtis extended both hands to pull Lily to her feet. He passed his thumbs over Lily's eyebrows and down her cheeks. They shared a long look. "Luckily for you," he said, "I can't be mad at you in that dress. Still, I can't promise anything about tomorrow."

"I'll wear the dress tomorrow, too," she said, in a pathetic, pretty rush. Curtis smiled and closed in to kiss her when Lily blinked downward, avoiding his mouth. She ran her palms down Curtis's chest. "Okay," she said, "I should have told you. There's something else."

Afraid of his response, she knew that she was talking too rapidly to sound credible. "He's a really nice guy, you'll be fine, I promise. It's just for tonight, his name's Matt. He runs the cell group I go to - really friendly..."

Curtis looked immediately unhinged: dark grey like a shark's fin in the depth of his aquamarine eyes. He took a step backward. Lily reached for him but he held himself away. "Thanks for dropping me right in it, Lil."

"I had to tell you!"

"Yeah!" he said. A vein grew fat on his forehead. "You told me because you had to tell me." He went for the door.

"Curtis, I'm sorry!"

He rested a hand on the doorknob, stilling. A car engine sounded, then, pulling into the driveway like a game of coming ready or not. He spoke without looking back. "Let's just do this."

Brendan and Suzannah were on the doorstep; she, holding a gift-wrapped box and wearing a dress of black velvet: he, wearing a shirt and jeans. Brendan's greeting was a flick of his eyebrows.

Curtis asked of Suzannah, "Oh, nobody told you it's not a theme party? Wait, don't tell me, uh - the wicked witch of the west?"

Suzannah narrowed her eyes at him. "So, what does that make you? The guy who's looking for a heart?"

"Now, now, kids." Lily laughed, uneasily. "Peace and light."

Suzannah offered the gift to her friend. "It's a bong. Seems you could use it."

"Ooh! Is this the vase that I saw in the window at Frizell's?" Lily enthused.

"Pollen makes your asthma flare up," Curtis said. "Why would you want a vase?"

"I'll get fake flowers." Lily hefted the box against her hip. "Babe, it's so beautiful. It looks like a genie lamp but it's made out of stained glass."

Suzannah smirked at Curtis. "Maybe you can rub it and a genie will come out and you can wish God away."

Lily dropped a whisper, "Not a good time." She waved an arm inward. "Come in, come in! Brendan, the beer's keeping cold out back. Curtis, can you show him where to find it?"

Curtis swapped nods with Brendan and the two men trudged away into the depths of the house. Suzannah pinned the door shut with her backside and hooked a finger at Lily to draw closer. "The pregnancy test was negative," she hissed.

Following with a nod, Lily said, "Yeah, I know. I was there when you took it."

"No, it was a false negative." Suzannah's eyebrows were winched high, waiting for the penny to drop. Instantly, Lily swamped her friend with a hug. They held onto one another and Lily screamed in a whisper, delight taking over her shock. "Oh my God, when did you find out?"

Releasing the hug, she laid a gentle hand against Suzannah's stomach. "Oh, we got ourselves a small Fry."

Suzannah wiped under her eyes before her makeup could run. "I've been vomiting, so I did another test. Ma doesn't know yet. Just keep it to yourself for a bit, okay? I'm - well, we are eleven weeks along."

And, she looked a little proud. Mostly, she looked afraid.

# C

Curtis heard the song Cactus Tree sound from the living room stereo, a warm alto voice and butterfly-chase guitar accompanying it, as he headed for the makeshift bar hired for the event. Clumps of people stood about in their glad rags and threw happy words at him as he passed.

He saw Lily amidst a circle of guests, shaking her head with that dimpled smile, and he heard her say, "There's not a chance that that is the greatest musical of all time..."

A peal of her laughter following, as the singer on the stereo followed at Lily's back and seemed to script her exact loveliness through it. Next, she offered a tray of food to Joel. Curtis thought, He wasn't formally invited, was he?

He suddenly noticed that Lily had removed her shoes at some point in the evening, and was now walking barefoot under that expensive gown. Lily turned to scout for empty plates that she could refill and caught Curtis's stare. She laid the tray on a table beside her and simply by standing there she was an acre of everything desirable: silk-drop gown and bright at the cheekbones like she was lit internally by a single bulb, glowing on her own source of power, with a smile that grew by tangible measures.

Everything around her is - dying - by comparison.

It tugged something up from Curtis's gut. Still, it was hard to forgive her at so little notice. Lily lifted one hand in a private gesture. She kissed two fingertips and pushed them out to him as they separated into a peace sign. Curtis found a grin but inside of him everything was unsure. Peace? He tipped up the beer bottle and washed the fear down. Where are we supposed to get that? That's the problem, he realised. She's not just mine. Her heart belongs to everybody.

# L

Lily kept her contact with Matt to a minimum out of courtesy to her fiancé, but she introduced Matt to her parents in the hope that he'd feel welcomed. And she knew, without a word from her mother, that Grace's eyes had singled out the minister and paired him as an ideal match for her daughter. All Lily could do was put on a smile and touch her mother's arm as she moved on.

Early in the evening she spied Suzannah standing next to Matt, her best friend clutching a glass and wearing her coldest face. Lily drew close enough to eavesdrop.

"... And do you say 'God bless' all the time?" Suzannah said. "I knew a minister who did that."

"Only on Sundays," Matt joked.

Suzannah used her drinking straw to mill the ice cubes in her glass. "I hate it when Christians do that. You stole it by the way. Christians did. They stole the word 'bless'. It originated with Pagans. Actually, you stole a lot of things: Christmas, Easter..."

A little later, Matt approached Lily at a stealth walk.

"Your friend's eyes!" he hissed. "I actually had sweat running down my spine!"

Lily threw her head back and laughed. "Don't worry. In time you'll adjust," she said, moving away.

"To the eyes?"

"To the sweating!"

Despite her best efforts, Lily kept a watchful eye on Curtis's co-worker, Nikki, throughout the evening: a natural born Bunny but without the synthetic touch, grape-fruit breasts she'd grown herself, legs for days. At some point in the evening, Curtis disappeared into the house and resurfaced next to Nikki. When, from yards away, Lily caught the renewed waft of cologne, she felt a twinge of jealousy. Why does it seem like he wore it for her benefit? 'Man Max' is the fragrance he reserves for rare occasions. Which new event is Nikki, to him?

# C

Nearing midnight, his best friend, Luke, began a speech. Curtis set down his beer and secured Lily at the waist. Looking down on their coupling as if from afar, Curtis could suddenly see what everyone else saw: those colleagues, college friends, ex-flat mates and relatives. We've made it.

It was real. It was happening.

Luke began, with, "I've known these two since I was a pimply assed teenager-"

Grace Carson clapped her hands over Beau's ears. Everyone saw it and laughed. Dana and Phillip Elderman looked like they were window shopping, wearing those vague smiles used to decline shop assistance, just looking thanks, and Lily somehow managed to act as though the disinterest didn't hurt.

At the conclusion of Luke's speech, the preacher held up his glass and said, "A toast!"

The black girl at the preacher's elbow yelled, "Yeah-h, baby!"

Curtis saw that Suzannah raised her glass to toast while she was whispering something to Brendan. Ultimately, she'd never approve of Curtis and Lily being together. And Curtis would never approve of Suzannah being Lily's friend. It'd been mutual dislike from day one. But, his parents and his brother appeared proud. It was displayed on their faces like so many words, as if this was the first good thing he'd ever done. Give it to them real.

He captured Lily's face in his hands and he kissed her with all that he had. She broke away presently and laughed in embarrassment, hiding her face briefly in his shoulder as people clapped and whistled. He couldn't help glancing at the preacher man. Yeah, he thought, you can look, buddy, but you can't touch.

# L

The night wore on into early morning. Most of the older set had left and people with jobs starting early that day, including Matt. This left the living room packed with purely young blood, alcohol fuelled, excited by anything. Curtis wound up the stereo with a hip-hop track. Lily rested against the wall and observed. Suzannah joined her and yelled in her ear above the music, "Your parents would be really proud."

"I think they were!" Lily said. "Nanny Grace mentioned-"

"No, no." Suzannah shook her head. "Your birth parents!"

She touched one hand tellingly to her stomach. "Being, y'know, I've been thinking... years ago, two people knew you were coming into the world, right? Whether or not they kept you, surely they'd wonder about you. Go and look for them! I never understood why you didn't."

"I'll do it one day," Lily nodded. "I will."

She watched her partner dance. With a few beers onboard he could definitely move-and-shake. He had shed his jacket and bowtie at some point and his shirt hung open by several buttons. Lean and perfectly toned like a swimmer, he was the centre of attention. People urged him on and clapped in time to the beat, their gaze on his hips and his feet as he segued into different dance moves. Minutes later he slipped a new CD into the sound system and said, "This is for Lil! Where is she?"

He held out his hands for Lily. The crowd parted to make way for her and closed in around the couple again. Curtis and Lily joined hands in a mock-salsa move and they swirled, curling into each other in a gentle collision. She claimed Curtis's face for a prolonged kiss, hearing people holler approval as she did so. The night went on because they were golden and, oh, he was as hot as the LA sun, and just as permeable.

Chapter 12

Scott observed Matt in the days following his phone call with Penny. Matt had not revealed details of the conversation. Another week passed. That evening, he waited until Matt had a beer in his hand before he decided to press for information.

He began carefully. "How'd it go with Pen? What'd she have to say?"

Matt wiped his mouth after a mouthful of beer, giving the fish tank a fleeting glance. "You're not going to believe me."

"You've been like a zombie. Tell me whatever you can."

"She, uh..." Matt drifted. "When it all ended, she found out that she was pregnant. To me."

Scott nodded, a little behind the news. Then, the words began to hit home. "You're serious?"

Matt rubbed hands down his face. "He's... Caleb is six." He stared down at his bare feet. "He also has cerebral palsy and needs physiotherapy and dialogue coaching. Pen gets carer relief whenever she needs a break. But, she's exhausted her Welfare allocation and she has nobody else to ask money from. Her parents refuse to acknowledge Caleb's existence because they're still pastoring in Riverside County. She needs financial support - mine."

Scott nodded, seeming wise, his hands in a clump with both thumbs against his lips. This is bad. No two ways about it.

And LA was a city that would make the most of it. He couldn't help seeing the bigger picture, all in cinema-scope and surround-sound like he was the director of a doomed, big-budget flick; a sequel that nobody wanted to see. He saw it in split-screen, with Matt standing alone and Penny with her child on the other side. Then he panned back a little further and he saw Matt and the church, the only world that the man knew, and it surrounded everything he touched; oh, Lord God, a belief system that would never tolerate this outcome of a physical evening even if their God did proclaim a grace that knew no bounds.

Presently, they raised their heads. Cars were arriving.

"Study group," Scott said.

Matt gulped the last of his beer. "It's okay. I can do it."

Scott said, "No. You can't."

He intercepted the small, keen-eyed group at the door. "Hey, guys. Afraid it's not going to happen tonight. Something's come up."

The group sent out a scattering of hellos and questions as Matt appeared. To his credit, Matt had pulled some cheerfulness up from his very toes. Yet no one could escape the shadow hanging over him as he said, "Hey, guys."

Lily, Merrin, and three young couples alternated stares between Matt and Scott for consensus. Merrin was first to say, "I can't stay long, anyway. I just came to tell you that I got me a date."

And Matt smiled, genuinely happy for her. Merrin jogged down the steps, dissolving into the night. The youngsters muttered commiserations and took their leave one by one until, presently, Lily was the only one left.

Scott had been studying Lily, unbeknownst to her: taking in her ponytail, red sarong and flip-flops. But, beyond what he could physically see was what Matt had spoken about: the way that Lily's vibe waited around, softly somehow, prepared to deal with whatever came her way.

As Lily turned to go, saying, "Take care," Scott tagged her arm and said, "Hey, wait around, okay?"

He folded back indoors. "Take the night off. Go some place," he commanded. "It's not about the engagement ring right now, it's about friendship and you need a person like this for support, full-stop."

Matt's voice was so quiet that his statement was almost uncatchable. "My sins are catching up with me. Frank was right."

"Frank who?"

"A guy in prison. He said that-"

"Forget Frank," Scott said, strongly. "The Psalmist said, 'You knew me before I was in my mother's womb, Your hands created me and Your hands sustained me'. The news of this child does not catch God out, Matt. We will deal with this. Just not right now."

# L

Lily and Matt drove to the Santa Monica Pier. She still had no idea what to say, feeling very much the woman to his man, seeing his gentleness stretched to breaking point, and she simply tried to make him laugh. They made their way to Pacific Park and bought wads of cotton candy and gained two tickets to the Ferris wheel ride. As they lifted gradually into the sky she said to him, "You look exhausted."

Matt smiled. "It's a long story."

"Is there anything I can actually do?"

"I'd rather we talked about anyone but me," he said.

Lily nodded, averting her face. She couldn't stare the truth at him. It's a crush. You can't seriously be thinking these things: nothing so big that it can't be taken back within a few words. I will be just another girl from church. It has to be that simple.

She said, "Yesterday, I went with my friend - oh, you know Suzannah. 'The eyes'..."

"The sweat," Matt added. They both smiled.

"She's just found out she's pregnant and I went with her to her first ultrasound. I saw this little..." Lily pinched her fingers tenderly in the air, "Tiny life happening right before my eyes. I'm hoping it's a girl. So, I blew the little peanut some kisses and I'm... well, I'm rambling," she said.

"No." Matt shook his head. "No, it's good."

She smoothed back her hair and sat on her hands, lost in silence. The wheel turned them another forty-five degrees before she spoke, with Santa Monica's coastline growing smaller beneath their feet. The Ferris wheel lights flickered and dazzled around them, a giant, surreal lollipop.

Lily said, "Do you think it's possible for a man and a woman to have a strictly platonic relationship?"

Matt craned his neck to stare up into the white-pole framework of the Ferris wheel. "I don't know," he said. "I guess it depends on the people involved."

"Curtis thinks it's all a sexual game, no matter what; that that's what everything comes down to in the end."

When Matt didn't reply, Lily leaned forward to see the waves charging at the beach below, like rows of protesters with their white placards rushing for the sand. "I think he'll get rid of Joel before long. And after that, who knows?"

# M

Who knows? He couldn't handle the complexity of the statement. He eased up the seat-bar when the ride ended. They started along the boardwalk toward the sandbar and he pushed his hands deep into his pockets when they hit the beach. "I'm no relationship counsellor, Lily, I never was. I'm a young adult director. If something's coming between you and your fiancée, it's for the two of you to sort out privately. About all I can do is recommend you to someone who deals specifically with couple's counselling."

Lily halted, causing Matt to do the same. "I want-" she carted fingers through her hair and held it there, scrunched at the base of her neck in a self-conscious gesture. "I want to be your friend, Matt. I want to talk to you about everything and for you to do the same with me. I don't think there's a thing wrong with that."

Matt felt his expression giving him away, shutting down like it was a department store at closing time, one shutter after another falling, as if Lily could never imagine his darkest hour, his inner soul, so she was best kept out of it.

"That's sweet of you," he said, with a quick nod. "Thank you."

"Okay," she said. "I guess I should go. Did you want a ride home?"

"It's okay. I'll take the bus."

Matt watched her leaving and thought, how much sleep have I lost waiting for a time exactly like this? And here you are. So, he blurted out an unintelligible word that sounded like he'd injured himself. "Iao!"

Lily laughed when she rounded. She back-tracked, calling, "What did you say?"

Sheepishly, he shrugged and said, "Want to take another ride?"

# L

They rode the rollercoaster and screamed away the strangeness. They proceeded to the miniature golf course where Matt lost five under par and Lily insisted on a handshake, saying, "Worthy opponent, sir."

"I'm getting familiar with losing," he said.

Even as Matt laughed, Lily could see the pain in him. They were leaving Pacific Park when their strides checked. Lily joined her palms like a tepee under her chin and she stood rocking herself a little on the spot.

"Whatever it is," she said, "I hope it works out. I wish I could say something, I haven't seen you like this before."

Matt used the toe of his shoe to scuff the ground and said, "Actually, there is something you can do. You work with disabled kids, right?"

"Yes. And I'm interning at a Special Ed school."

"My friend has a little boy who's never been schooled. He has spastic cerebral palsy, speech problems, The Works. I wondered if I could put the two of you in touch..."

"Absolutely," Lily nodded. "I'm glad you asked. I'll do whatever I can."

Matt smiled, not breaking the stare. Lily became immobile under his attention. All the things they didn't say had found an intangible way of intersecting in the atmosphere, gathering strength from their body language, and making the night fold around them slowly - like soft, safe insulation.

Lily eventually said, "I have to cook dinner for Curtis."

Matt nodded, more briskly this time, stepping backward and beating a quick rhythm on the flat of his thighs. "So, I'll be in touch about my friend."

"Okay! Sure." Lily waved the hand that held her car keys. "Catch you later."

# M

As Matt watched Lily walking away, keeping her head down, and as he heard her flip-flops clicking quietly into the distance, it hit him that she'd tried to give him a chance to say it all, to say I want to be with you, and after that she was partly saying goodbye.

#  

Suzannah studied the yellow baby booties in her palm, the customers whirling around her as if in silence for all that she noticed them. She wasn't just Suzannah Fry any more. She was Suzannah plus one.

At her side Ester was rifling through a knitted newborn-sized range and she eventually held a rainbow colored jumpsuit against her self. "Does this make my butt look big?"

Suzannah laughed in surprise at this rare humor from her mother. She collected the little suit and added it to the booties in her hand, shrugging. "This is cute. I mean, it's all cute until the thing is squawking and keeping you up nights."

After the initial shock, her mother was thrilled: almost giddy with the news. Right then, Ester wrapped Suzannah in a sudden, engulfing hug, right there in front of everyone, saying, "You'll be a great Mom."

"Oh, if one more person tells me that?" Suzannah grizzled, breaking away.

Ester rubbed her daughter on the back, continuing to bargain hunt. "I know! Brendan's like a puppy with two tails."

"No, Lily's the one who keeps saying it. But saying something doesn't make it true."

"Oh, you were a screamer. Goll-y, were you ever," Ester said, blowing out her cheeks. "Then again, most Prems are. But, look at you now!"

"Oh, I haven't forgotten how to scream," Suzannah said dryly, and Ester grinned, saying, "Don't I know it. Now, is this all?"

They made their way to the checkout counter. Cribs and pushchairs and diaper disposal units were suspended on the Daisy-Duck-leg colored walls, Suzannah's future arriving even as she fretted over it.

"I'll get this," Ester said, handing her credit card to the girl behind the counter. "And speaking of Lily, is she still up to her eyeballs in that church?"

Suzannah collected the glossy bag of goods. "She was pretty freaked out with that reading you gave her on the phone."

Mother and daughter passed outside into daylight and made for the parking lot.

"Truth can be a scary thing," Ester said.

"But, Ma, telling her that way? It was like saying, 'don't cross the street because a bus is coming', and then pushing her in front of it! It's not the way we do things."

Ester claimed her daughter's arm, pulling Suzannah to a stop. It heralded the return of the more familiar tone: flat, dictatorial. "I did the reading three times to be sure. It never changed once. It was always the Tower, the Wheel, and the Hierophant."

She brushed her knuckles down Suzannah's cheek. "Whatever happens, whatever comes... the more you're around her, you should watch your back as well."

#  

Late one evening, Lily and Curtis lay in bed, in lamplight and in arms. Out of the blue, she said, "Our first son should be called Jack."

They'd had the discussion countless times before. Their firstborn would always be a son.

"Actually, I like that," Curtis said.

"And what about Beau?"

"Oh God, no."

"Why not?"

"No disrespect to your dad, but Beau sounds like something you wear with a tuxedo. It's something that shoots an arrow."

"But, if you think of it like that, Jack is also a name for a type of hammer or something that raises your car when you need to change a flat." She tilted her head back teasingly, like an old-fashioned movie girl in need of a kiss, and Curtis caught her chin.

"You're so annoying," he said, kissing her.

"You love it, really." Lily settled down against his shoulder and swirled one fingertip on his bare chest, seeming to write it all down.

"So, we'll have two boys close together in age," she murmured, "Then just when we think we're done, a few years later we'll have a surprise pregnancy. A girl."

Curtis poured his fingers through Lily's hair, separating strands: listening.

"Jack will be identical to you, in every way," she said, as if it was a fact. "He'll have a heartbreaker face, for starters. He'll probably want to get his hair into different styles when he's five years old, way too young to be precious about his appearance, but no-one will be able to change his mind on the subject."

Curtis grinned, gathering the picture. Lily sounded like she had met the child ahead of time, and already had an infinite love for him. Some part of it touched him deeply, deeper than a mere thought.

Meanwhile, Lily talked on. "When it comes to people's birthdays, Jack won't be content with making homemade projects for us. He'll actually go out and spend all his pocket money on stuff that will impress people. As... a brother to Beau, they'll get along fine. But, sometimes he'll be a brat. Like, if the boys build something together? Jack will take all the credit."

Curtis couldn't help laughing. "Everything you just said, that is me to a tee as a kid with Rory. And, we're still going to argue like hell over that name Beau, by the way...."

"Okay, so, Beau is a dreamer, the sort of kid who goes off on his own for periods of time." Lily rested her chin on Curtis's ribs. Her hand swept across Curtis's abdomen; as though she could conjure the children from his skin cells, bare them on the air. "Beau will have a propensity to over-eat. It's a comfort thing for him. He'll have this incredible love for books. And for all his childhood he'll have this secret yearning for a pet. Something unusual, like a parrot. We'll get it for him, just to watch his face light up."

She turned eyes to him, warmth flooding every corner of her features. "He'll love knowing that he can set the bird free. He'll love it even more when it flies back, because it's coming back to him. It gives him his place in the world. It makes him... visible... to himself."

Curtis smiled, watching her closely. "And the baby girl?"

Lily stared across at the curtains. Her voice developed a new tone, an even deeper kind of longing. "Her name's Mercy. Mercy Sloane."

Tucking an arm beneath his head, Curtis nodded. "That's good. Yeah. Mercy's good."

Lily continued in a hushed voice, sleepiness invading. "She'll be a walking, talking dolly, the sort of girl that people will constantly say, 'you should really get her portrait painted'. Even though she's the youngest, she'll try to mother the two boys, make sure they have their lunches packed for school, telling them to leave their shoes at the door every time they come in from playing outdoors. She's the kind of girl who becomes a real guy's girl. She'll... want a fancy dress for going out to dinner, but she's just as happy to dress-down for play. At the end of the day, what she's really about and what she wants to do the most is... hang out with her brothers and learn how to make armpit farts."

Curtis started laughing, just a breath through his nostrils, then it overtook him and he laughed soundlessly with his eyes shut, his shoulders shaking with the force of it. Lily tapped him on the thigh, a gentle questioning at first then it ended in a light slap. "Hey-y," she chastised.

Curtis closed in around her and they slipped onto their sides, eyes trained together.

He shook his head. "No, I love it," he reassured, serious once more, pleased to be where he was and having that kind of conversation with such a strange, exotic species of a girl.

#  

Matt could not drag his eyes away from the green-eyed boy. He recognizes me.

The thought was ludicrous, but it stuck. He'd greeted Penny with only a scrap of his usual warmth. It was all he had left when he faced her after all those years.

She acted nervous and she bent to talk to Caleb. "This is Mom's friend Matt. Say hi."

Matt hunkered down, feeling glad that his sunglasses hid a sudden pricking of tears. Caleb smiled, jerkily, one hand flailing down the side of his wheelchair. His small feet were bowed inward on the wheelchair's footplates.

Matt swallowed, saying, "Hey, buddy."

The little hand was like play dough to the touch, seeming almost boneless. Penny had been rearranging the beads around her neck for the past few minutes. Her skin was sunburnt. "He can talk, but it's an effort," she said. "Today's not a good day."

Matt nodded, engrossed by Caleb's long, dusky eyelashes and the splash of his mother's freckles across his nose.

"Should we order?" Penny said.

Matt drew himself upright and led them toward a sidewalk table. They formed an unsettled triangle around the table, speaking only to the waitress to order. Penny's hands were loose fists on the tabletop, her eyes never still. When the food arrived, she placed a sandwich in one of Caleb's hands and guided it toward his mouth. "Chew slowly," she instructed.

The past hung around them: stifling, a heatwave. There was no way to avoid it when Penny spoke. "I'd say the word sorry, but I don't know how much it would accomplish."

Matt fastened his eyes on Caleb, bathing the boy with smiles, giving more and more of himself away. "I remember the date you left," he said.

"I agonized, Matt."

"January twentieth."

Penny retrieved a fallen piece of bread from Caleb's tee shirt and tossed it to the sidewalk. "I'm the daughter of a minister, Matt. You know that. I needed to get out for a while; clear my head and my conscience. Then, I found out about Caleb. I couldn't bring myself to call you."

She squinted at him. "Would I make the same decision if I had that time over? I don't know. Ministry was all you ever wanted."

"Fatherhood could have been, too," Matt said. "Look, I'm not going to deny... this whole thing has left me wide open. I can't sleep, I can't-" he planed both hands, leaving it at that. "This could cost me everything."

"No one necessarily has to know." After a beat, "But, you don't work like that. You always lay all your cards on the table. That's you."

Matt stared out at the busy street traffic. He spoke almost to himself. "The people I'll have to deal with..."

"Bureaucracy? Tell me about it! The fight to get Caleb's speech therapy alone..."

She was more forthright than Matt remembered. Being a mother had given her that.

Penny sipped her mineral water. "I need one hundred dollars a week."

A few seconds passed. Matt said, "Okay."

Penny looked stunned. "That's it? No other questions, no number crunching?"

"Whatever's going to make your life easier. And this is my deal too, remember, it wasn't some immaculate conception."

Penny reached out to smooth Caleb's blonde curls. "I feel like Mafia, trying to shake you down in public." She rested both elbows on the table, and sighed through her joking smile. "Anyway, how about you? Have you found anyone?"

"Yeah. Her name's Scott," Matt joked. He drained his coffee. "I don't want to cut this short, but I have an appointment I can't reschedule. Are you okay to ring me with your account details?"

"Sure," Penny said, and as Matt stood and rubbed Caleb's head, she repeated, "I'm serious. Tell whoever she is that she's a lucky girl."

#  

"Ruby? Yeah, Ruby's okay." Lily talked into the phone as she relaxed on the master bed. The phone was tucked between her shoulder and her ear as she applied red nail polish to her thumbnail. She could hear her friend turning pages in the baby-names book.

"Anyway," Suzannah said, "it might be a boy. I like Jonas for a boy."

Lily applied polish to her index finger, pulling a face. She heard the drone of the garage door lifting and the idle of the RX8 engine. "Well, Jonas is fine. If you want a drug-runner for a son."

Suzannah pealed into laughter. "Alright, fi-ine. The other idea was 'Jamie'."

Curtis entered. Lily smiled a greeting and did not receive a smile in return as Curtis removed his watch, laying it on the bed stand. He delved into his pocket and dropped a shiny white slip of paper into Lily's lap.

Her heart sank. Speeding ticket. "Suz, I'll call you back, okay? Alright."

She hung up. Curtis popped a knuckle on his right hand.

After a beat Lily said, "Want to talk?"

"About what?" Curtis rummaged in the bureau for a fresh t-shirt.

Lily cut her eyes to the ceiling. "Anything! You've been cracking those knuckles so much lately it's like I'm being followed around by a popcorn machine."

Curtis huffed a humorless laugh and stripped his top-half bare.

Lily held up the ticket. "How many does this make it?"

"Oh, too many, alright?" he reacted, kicking the sweaty t-shirt to the door. He put hands on hips, his toned abdomen charging up and down. He sniffed, looking away. "Sorry."

"Come here," Lily said, patting the mattress beside her. Curtis sank onto the edge of the bed. Lily put a coat-hanger arm around her fiancé's neck and delivered three, long, gentle kisses below his ear. Her thumb slowly rubbed his chest and she said, "What's up?"

"It's bad," Curtis confessed and their eyes met, close range. "They're threatening to repo the RX8. I defaulted on the last two payments. And I upped the board and Joel can't make it, so he's..." Curtis ran one hand down his partner's thigh, watching himself do it. "He's going. He's gone."

"What? When did all this happen? Have I... stopped living here?"

"We need the money, Lil."

Lily rested back on both hands. "Right, but you keep missing the point. I should know before anyone else does! I should be consulted." She hung her head back. "God, I thought we'd gotten past this."

"Well? Sorry. It seemed the most obvious way to help with the fuckin' cops and whatever."

Lily struggled to remain calm. It was the last straw in a seven-year bale. She trained serious eyes on his. "We could have two boarders and you'd still be in financial crap. The cops aren't going to quit their jobs to help you out. The cops - aren't the problem."

"Oh, don't start." Curtis got to his feet. Lily picked up her pillow and pressed it to her face, sloping forward until her knees imprisoned her face where she sat. Her voice came as a muffled shout. "I- can't- keep- doing this!"

She let go the pillow and looked up, swatting hair from her face. "I'm serious."

Curtis was shuffling into a fresh pair of shorts and he put one hand to the wall as he lost his balance and hopped on one foot. "So am I! I'm fucking ripped right now. Ask anyone at work."

"Oh." She tipped her head. "I should ask Nikki?"

"I knew you were weird about her."

"She calls you Curt!"

"So? It's an abbreviation."

"It's a nickname! Trust me, world of difference."

Curtis strapped on his wristwatch with a series of small jerks. Lily slumped at the shoulders, saying, "Well, how did you ask Joel to leave? Were you rude?"

"I said this is LA and this is the way things are done. Besides, I'm fucking sick of him moping around the house. It's past time he went." Curtis found a handful of coins in his pocket and tinkled them onto the bedside cabinet. "I did have a new idea to broach with you, but now clearly isn't the time, so..."

"Oh, don't you dare put that on me!" Lily exclaimed. "Act like I'm some nagging old bag when you just go around blasting holes everywhere and I'm the one who has to go around filling them in! And I'm not allowed to complain? I can't voice my opinion?"

Somehow it all escalated before Lily was aware of it. Her voice had reached fever pitch and she jabbed the bed to make a point. "Well, here's an update, sweetcheeks. This isn't nineteen-fifty one! I'm not waltzing around all day with a feather duster in my hand waiting for you to bring home the bacon and buy me upgrades and tell me that I don't look a day over twenty when I'm actually fifty by then and realistically look like a walnut! And you want to know why I'm none of those things? Because I am not going to wake up thirty years from now and wonder what the hell else I could have done to change the way things are going!"

They were both a little stunned after the rant. Curtis smiled, but his expression remained wary when he echoed, " 'Sweetcheeks?' "

# C

Suddenly, Lily's face crumpled. Her lips squirmed with the effort of holding back tears. She hid her face in her hands, whispering, "I want marshmallows," and she flopped onto her back.

With a pang of genuine guilt, Curtis climbed onto the mattress and hovered over Lily. He peered between Lily's fingers as if he were peering through a darkened window.

"Hey," he said, jouncing the mattress with a push of his hands.

"Go away," she said, stodgily. But, after a moment she splayed her arms and sighed. "Curtis, something has to change. We argue more than we talk."

"I know," he said. "It'll change. It will."

Up close, he could see the marks of exhaustion under Lily's eyes and he lowered a kiss on her salty-wet mouth, kissing sorry like he'd know better next time.

"So, I've got this idea," he said, nudging Lily's nose with his own. "It's a really good idea. And I'm going to run it past you. You watching? Cause it's going to run right past you."

Lily cracked a smile, letting go her defiance with him and cupping his face. Whole words she could have spoken fell away from her eyes. She said, "I will find a way of staying mad at you. I just haven't perfected it yet."

Chapter 13

"So, it's like when celebrities have live-in chefs or trainers," Lily explained to her mother across the Carson's kitchen table. Curtis sat silently beside her, the list of business costs in his hand. Grace kinked her fingers inward to see the budget sheet.

"But, this is for everyday people," Lily continued. "Curtis would actually visit people in their homes and have them hire whatever exercise gear they need from him. A lot of people with long-term weight issues lose their motivation to attend the gym. This way, Curtis takes the motivation to them. And he'll work out alongside the person for the first few home visits, too."

"What happens if you get ten clients in one day?" Grace smiled, laying the paper aside. "There'll be nothing left of you."

Curtis smiled at Grace. Lily kept up the pitch. "Oh, no, his colleagues want in on the deal, too. The three of them are going to start the business together. Sean and Nikki can find seventy percent of the seed money for advertising and getting a work vehicle and whatever business training they need."

She put her palms together, glancing at Curtis. "But... this is the part where it gets tricky."

Curtis's eyes said go on. Lily steeled herself and smiled at her mother. "Our credit's maxed out and I'm still paying my way through school, so we can't-"

"You want a loan?" Grace supplied. The kitchen clock clicked away seconds, the only sound to be heard. "Is this the time for it? Aren't you getting married? And why is your credit maximized? You've never used credit cards, before. That's not how you were raised."

Lily wrinkled her nose self-consciously, fleeting a glance at Curtis. "No, I mean his credit is maxed."

Grace shifted focus to Curtis. He grinned at her, looking slightly uncomfortable. She combed fingers through one side of her honey-white hair and patted it back in place.

"It going to be your venture?" she asked of him. "You're the one in charge?"

"Uh, yeah, that's right."

Grace nodded, taking time to study Curtis's handsome young face. "And yet you can't manage your own personal credit? How do you plan to handle the business finance?"

"We'll hire an accountant. That side of it is basically out of my hands."

Grace asked of her daughter, "Are you happy with this idea?"

"Oh, definitely," Lily said, laying a hand on Curtis's thigh. "He'd be perfect for it and no-one else has done this kind of thing before - at least that we know about."

Grace rested her chin in her hand and picked up the page of costs again. "Would I write out a check or deposit directly into an account?"

Lily put a hand to her mouth, blinking incredulously. Curtis watched his fiancée's reaction all the while.

"Really?" she blurted. "You'll do it?"

Curtis rubbed Lily on the shoulder, laughing at her as her eyes rimmed with tears. She flew out of her chair and bridged the tabletop to hug her mother.

Grace held on in return and said, "Well, I like to see that sparkle back in your eyes."

#  

Curtis bought his fiancée a fluffy white puppy for her July birthday, a breed of dog that was known not to exacerbate asthmatic symptoms. They drew names from a hat, and little Mallow - derived from Lily's favorite treat - quickly made himself at home. They kept the birthday celebrations private and went to an Italian restaurant, sharing the night over a bowl of floating candles.

Mallow slept on their bed for the first three nights until Curtis put his foot down. Lily worried that the puppy would get hungry, or bored, or lonely, so she gave Mallow one of her socks to carry around in his mouth and she made a pile of blankets his nest in the laundry. She began talking to him and for him in a high-pitched cartoony voice, the way that girls often did with pets; something that Curtis hoped Lily would drop whenever they had company.

They picked new curtains for their bedroom and had friends over, and as the days bled by, Joel had all but disappeared from their lives. Lily tried to include him like she had before, but he was cold and withdrawn.

Curtis had begun travelling all over the state for wholesale priced machinery and for business training seminars, so Lily studied and worked and walked the dog and went to church. She scoured the Bible and called Matt with questions over the phone, but he was different with her, too, and she felt a drifting apart. In order to hold onto her relationship with Curtis, she felt she had had to give everything else away.

Still, it was between herself and God alone, just what she knew; and what she risked to believe... and what she decided could simply never be.

#  

Suzannah gave up trying to quit cigarettes and she felt better for it. Her partner still drank like a fish but she steered clear of enchantments of late, settling for arguments instead. She met Lily at a bridal store on Rodeo Drive for dress decisions late one Friday afternoon. Dana and the Carson's were gathered there. Dana had declared herself too old and married to be matron of honor at the wedding, leaving Lily with no means of response. Suzannah would be the matron of honour, with Dana as bridesmaid.

Within the bridal store it wasn't long before Dana began poking around in Suzannah's life with her mild-mannered nosiness, while Lily and Grace compared dresses on mannequins in the background.

"So, do you actually..." Dana rolled a hand in the air, "Believe in the institution of marriage?"

"Me, as a...?" Suzannah wanted to see Dana's discomfit with the word 'witch' on her tongue.

"Well, right," Dana said, nodding. "With everything you believe."

"Wiccans call it hand-fasting. The essence of the act is the same. You're saying you don't want to be without the other person. So, yeah, absolutely; I believe in it if both people mean it."

Dana resettled her handbag strap over her slim shoulder, watching Lily and Grace examine a particular gown by picking up either side of the wedding skirt. The two women then headed together for the changing cubicles.

"I saw a documentary the other night about hand-fasting," Dana continued, "And people - jump - over a broom handle, is that right?"

Her tone as if Suzannah was some primitive, cobwebbed thing from the Dark Ages.

" 'Scuse me," Suzannah said and she bee-lined for the cubicles. Grace passed her with an unwanted dress. Suzannah hunted out Lily's feet below the half-height doors.

"Lil?" she said. "You almost done? Cos I am.'

Lily winged the door open and let her friend inside. "Oh God. Is it the Dana Doom Squad?"

Suzannah pretended to wipe frantically at her sleeves. "Get it off me, get it off me! All the Christianity!"

They started laughing, just quietly, a hushed sound through their noses: then, it became a little louder and it quickly degenerated into wheezes and they had to lean on one another's shoulders, eyes squeezed shut, letting the laughter consume them. Suzannah loomed exaggeratedly in Lily's face, intoning, "Ahwunna see your soul, heathen!" and they dissolved again.

The laughter tapered into the odd, feeble giggle and they wiped their eyes dry. Suzannah began to fiddle with the sweetheart neckline of the bodice. The dress bloomed wide at the bottom and trailed a little ways behind, white organza with an edging the delicate color of sea foam. As Lily reached for the door latch, Suzannah stopped her and gently pinched Lily's cheeks into a light shade of pink. "There," she said. "You look like a music box dancer."

Upon sight of Lily, Dana raised her eyebrows. "You're wearing white?"

Grace charged a glance.

"Okay," Dana said, showing her palms. "I didn't say anything."

Suzannah fussed with the eyelets of the bodice, glowering at Dana over Lily's shoulder. "White is a wedding tradition, you know, not some 'anatomical' tick in the box."

"Could we all just speak a little more quietly?" Grace said.

Beau was staring in some confusion around their faces. "Where's Lily?"

"I'm here, Poppa," Lily waved one hand, a touch of sadness to it. Beau nodded and strolled away. Within moments, Dana shielded her eyes with one hand, saying, "Oh, Mom, look."

Grace glanced about and spied her husband browsing a rack of silk teddies. She went and took him by the hand with no fuss, leading him back to the group.

"I'd better go," Dana said. "Megan's due for ballet in an hour and you know what traffic's like."

She indicated Lily's dress. "They're all nice. I'm sure whatever you decide will be fine."

She hugged her mother, then took her father by the shoulders, saying, "And you? Behave yourself."

"Oh, that's no fun," Beau said. He shook his head as he watched Dana leave. "They grow up so fast."

Lily stood there, be-gowned and seeming at a loss. Grace closed in. "Honey, she doesn't mean those things. She just doesn't think."

"Dana never lets up, you know?" Suzannah said. "Not once in all the years I've known you guys. What is her deal?"

Lily flounced the bottom of the dress with both hands and shrugged. "What does everyone think?"

Grace said, "Give us a walk, sweetheart."

Following the walk, the vote was unanimous in favor of the previous dress. Grace and Lily crowded back into the cubicle to de-gown. As her mother unhooked the bodice, Lily said, "Nanny Grace, Curtis is the one. I know it."

Grace fetched her reading glasses from her handbag and bent a little at the knees, trying to catch the light down her lenses to see the hooks clearly. "I think he is definitely attempting to be the kind of son-in-law we would want," she said.

Lily's voice was cast in doubt. "Maybe I should have done more to help you get to know him better over the years."

"I don't like to think you're rushing on our account, just because you're living together out of wedlock. We're not as starchy as all that."

"No, I know." Smiling quizzically, Lily added, "Rushing it? We've been together twelve years."

"You have?" Grace gave the bodice a gentle tug apart and slid it down Lily's legs for her to step from. "Your father's right. Time does fly."

Grace straightened and pressed her cheek against her daughter's cheek and they found one another's eyes in the mirror. Grace smiled through tears, rubbing Lily's shoulders. "So long as you can promise me that you love him without wanting to change him. Because, honey, whatever you have together - now - is what you will always have. Either that, or it's completely gone. Do you understand what I'm saying? There are no other options. That's how marriage works."

#  

Sunday morning, Lily and Curtis slept late. Yawning, Lily said, "Let's have hotcakes but with marshmallows in the batter."

Curtis arched his eyebrows. "Uh, no."

Lily mirrored his expression. "Uh, yes."

She laughed as Curtis tried to pin her arms and they struggled around. She threw a leg over him and forced Curtis's arm behind his back. He fell face first into the pillow.

"Arh-huh," he said, turning his face sideways and meeting a view of Lily's free neckline. "You do realise that I'm not trapped. It's just not a bad view from here."

Lily spoke close to his ear. "Marshmallows, or I sing that song you hate."

"So? Bring it on."

"I'll sing it really, really off-key."

Curtis rolled onto his back, taking Lily with him, and they rested in a lazy tangle of limbs. They kissed in two, quick trades. "Fine," he said. "But, you're crazy enough without the sugar shock. Then, we've got to crunch numbers with Nikki and Sean on webcast and I want you there."

"Well, I am all ears, baby, but first I gotta get me some hotcakes." Lily unearthed herself from the sheets and stood. Curtis made a surprise attack around Lily's waist and dragged her back onto the bed. She laughed and surrendered, holding Curtis's face between her palms. They stared lengthily, just staring and nothing else, and it felt profoundly good: feeling all the reasons why they loved each other.

They ate at leisure and shared the morning paper. Later, while Curtis mowed the lawns, Lily searched the flatmates wanted section and cut clippings for Joel. As the morning drifted by, she went outside with a glass of water for Curtis. He wound the mower down and drank the glass dry in four, long draughts.

He handed the glass back, saying, "Babe, can you stop feeding those goddamned pigeons? Look at that patio!"

Lily laughed as she went toward the house. "I don't direct their birdy bottoms, y'know."

And he said, "Wean them, then. Something!"

She blew him a cheeky kiss and clapped the slider shut. Joel entered the kitchen, then, with a pair of earphones trailing into his ears from a device in his shirt pocket.

Lily smiled. "Hey, I haven't seen you in a while."

Joel extracted the earphones and left them dangling while he filled a glass with water. Lily could see that Joel's hands were shaking.

"What songs do you have?" She gestured to the earphones.

"It's one the props for the part I'm playing." Joel's Adam's apple jumped as he took consecutive gulps, avoiding eye contact.

"You're allowed to borrow props?"

"You know what?" Joel said, swinging about. "I'm done with you two."

"Joel, I'm sorry. I am. Curtis shouldn't have-"

"You must dye your hair or something. Surely you're blonde underneath it all if you can't see through that prick."

She crossed her arms. "That's... a little harsh."

Joel went to set his empty glass on the counter and he missed by an inch. The glass smashed to the floor.

Lily darted forward and touched his arm. "Don't step on it."

And Joel yelled full in her face. "Don't fucking touch me!"

Lily backed away, shaken by the strength of Joel's anger. He grabbed the kitchen cloth and squatted to wipe up the shards of glass. Lily felt her cheeks flood with indignant heat and she said, "I am sorry about the way Curtis talked to you. Let me say it."

"I'll replace the glass," Joel said, stiffly. "I'll give him more money before I leave."

"Forget about the glass. Where are you going to live?"

She fetched the newspaper clippings from the table and offered them, still somewhat gun-shy. "I found these for you."

Joel glanced them over and pocketed them. "Thanks."

His anger seemed to diminish by degrees. He emptied the shards into the trash.

"Thanks a lot," he said, his voice returning to its usual, dull inflection as he walked out of the kitchen.

#  

Lily scalded her tongue on the mug of hot chocolate that Matt had prepared. She gave a thumbs-up when he checked in with his eyes.

"It makes the cut?" he grinned. "Sorry about the lack of marshmallows."

Merrin spoke up from the opposite couch. "So, how's it going with Joel?"

Lily sipped again to give herself a moment to compose an answer. "Okay. But, he's... he's leaving."

"What? Why?" Merrin said, then added after a moment, "Or, maybe it's none of my business."

"No, it's just-" Lily brushed invisible matter from her thigh, "Curtis and I are looking forward to the business venture and the extra money from a boarder isn't so needed now. I-I think he was looking at his options anyway."

Matt cut across the conversation with a welcome change of topic. "I meant to ask, how did the 'possibility and conceivability' lecture go?"

"What's the difference between the two?" Merrin asked.

"Just know they both come with a complimentary headache," Lily smiled.

Once cell group was over, the best time followed when she could relax with Matt and Merrin; something she gave herself permission to be selfish about. Here in this house, there was not a thing that Curtis, or that life in general, could dampen.

She took a deep breath. "How to put this? Okay, the difference between possibility and conceivability is this: what is possible has been objectively established as being 'able to succeed' in whatever given matter, especially in scientific terms. Whenever physics meet with natural reality, scientists are able to establish what might or might not be likely to validate. Conceivability, though, is something that is constantly pushing boundaries, and isn't necessarily possible as yet. Um, for example, thousands of vaccines have been created to help humans fight a variety of diseases, and yet to eradicate cancer is inconceivable at this point in time."

"Okay, so here's the million dollar question," Merrin said. "Was there anything that you wondered about as being possible or just conceivable that you've now answered for yourself? Categorically?"

"Mm-hm," Lily nodded.

"And what was it?"

"The question of God's benevolence."

#  

Lily was studying in the kitchen, days later, when Joel presented himself with a suitcase tagging along on a strap behind him. "Time for bye, I guess," he said. Lily stood up and gave him a quick hug. He seemed jumpy, asking, "Where's Curtis?"

"Oh, finishing up at work before he flies out for the business seminar tonight. He flies back tomorrow afternoon."

"He must have enjoyed it. Getting rid of me. He's wanted to do it for a long time."

Lily wet her lips, feeling pensive. "I guess we're all just moving into a new phase in our lives. He could have handled it better, though."

Joel indicated over his shoulder. "I stuck the last rent check under the Thai kid."

Lily glanced around Joel to the refrigerator where the photo of her sponsored child, Lap, was displayed.

"Anyway." Joel kissed two fingers, waving them at Lily. "Back to the hostel. Might see you round."

That evening, Lily stood with her partner in the LAX departure terminal. Curtis checked in his bags and, at the boarding gate, Lily stayed to kiss him with soft, definite explorations.

After a time, Curtis broke free. "So, you're heading home to the bead-making freak?"

"No. I didn't tell you? He's cleared out ahead of time, gone back to the hostel."

Upward facing, her chin on Curtis's chest, Lily sighed. "I can't say I'm sorry he's gone. Lately, he's been a lot more kind of..."

"Mm," Curtis said.

"Mm," she agreed, delivering a final kiss. The loud-speaker warbled, "Will all passengers boarding..."

"Your face has changed," Curtis commented.

"Yeah? Changed how?"

"I don't know. Something you want to tell me?"

Lily put hands on hips and swished side to side in a teasing motion. "Maybe-e. We'll talk when you get back."

Curtis grinned, backing toward the queue. "Sure you don't want to tell me now?"

"Go git!" she smiled.

Reaching the boarding gate, Curtis looked back, and Lily had formed her fingers like a banana for the international signal call me.

Night drew in. Lily finally had the house to herself. She revelled in the sanctuary of her bedroom, nursing a hot chocolate and scribbling an essay draft. Once finished, she opened her Bible. She picked up where she had left off in the first epistle of John. 'Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.'

The bedroom telephone rang, making Lily startle. Without breaking her reading she reached for the receiver. "Hello, this is Lily."

"Hey, it's Matt."

Lily pulled herself upright and crossed her legs, putting the Bible aside. "Hey! What's up? It's been so long, what - two days?"

"It was a drought," Matt joked. "No, I just wanted to let you know that my friend with the boy who needs the special Ed school has a new cell-phone number. D'you have a pen handy?"

Once Matt had relayed the information, there was a protracted silence on the line. Lily lay back, staring at the ceiling. She decided for the figurative plunge. "Matt, do you think it's possible for anyone to be locked out of Heaven? What about those people who have faith in God but don't live Christianity as an outward lifestyle because of-of other factors?"

Matt gave a soft laugh. "Are you worried you won't make it into Heaven, Lily?"

"No," Lily said. Then, "I don't know."

"The way I see it? God doesn't love us for trying to be blameless. He knows all our secrets and our questions. He promises that His heart toward us is more loving than anything our minds can possibly comprehend."

Lily didn't know why, but her vision became flanked with tears. "Okay," she said. "Oh, and Matt? I was meaning to tell you I-I think I'm going to start attending another church."

Seconds passed while Lily held her breath, not wanting to hurt Matt or to beguile him either, treading the awful line that had developed between them without direct intention.

"When did you decide this?" Matt asked.

"Two, maybe three days ago."

"I'm sorry to hear it. But... you know... it's important for you to follow your gut if that's what you've ultimately decided to do. Can I just ask what brought on the decision?"

Lily stared down at the splay of her left hand and the expensive ring resting there. Her gaze travelled over to the open Bible, and lastly to the photo of herself and Curtis on the bureau.

"I love dissecting everything about belief and religion," she said. "But, Curtis has to know that I need him most of all. Do you - can you understand that? It's too much to ask of our relationship right now to have it any other way."

"I can understand that."

"But I definitely want to stay in touch with you - with all of you."

"Lily, just don't make promises that will break your back. Never feel guilty for needing to simplify your life, alright?"

Lily bit her lip. Words fell into the receiver in a quiet, unbidden march. "He thinks I took the wrong road, and that it's all up to me to make the U-turn. I just wanted to say that you were... a pleasant cul-de-sac to visit."

Matt laughed; a single note. "Thanks. I guess. I've never been called a cul-de-sac before."

They talked a little more, but only of incidentals. When Matt eventually ended the call, Lily switched off the bedside lamp and curled onto her side beneath a blanket tide. Curtis hadn't called. She wondered about the choices she was making. She was tired of scrutinizing every detail.

There in the darkness, a lone tear ran down her temple onto her pillow.

She woke twice in the night sure that she had heard noises. Toward dawn, she finally drifted into dreams. She stood inside a quaint chapel building at a wedding altar. Pigeons roosted on the dormer windows. Curtis stood facing her in his tuxedo, saying, "Morning."

Lily tried to raise her arms to embrace him but couldn't. Her arms were like lead. And with an idiotic smile, Curtis kept saying, "Morning... morning..."

Lily surfaced from sleep. When her eyes fluttered open, Joel was on all fours above her and he said, "Morning."

Chapter 14

Lily wrestled against Joel. He pinned her with his full weight, hopelessly strong. He grinned, but deeply dark with an ancient kind of anger, like he was taking ownership of her with his pupils. Lily's breath caught in her throat. A charge shot throughout her body to escape him. Her hands struck whatever they could reach. Slap sounds. Panting.

He said, "I forgot to give back the spare key, so I thought I'd stop by and-"

Lily's legs escaped the sheets and whistled past Joel's head, causing him to duck to a standing position. His casual demeanor vanished. From out of his khaki pocket he instantly flourished a knife.

He pounced on Lily's top half and pressed the tip of the knife to her cheekbone. She stopped thrashing. A sob rose.

"If you think I'm fucking kidding, I'm not."

Her body was all but mummified under his. She sucked in a breath and spat in Joel's face. The blob of saliva trailed sluggishly down his cheek. Calmly, he wiped it off; then he drew back his fist and punched Lily in the head.

Black out.

#  

Curtis walked from the business conference into the hotel foyer. He dialled home on his cell-phone. The voice machine, in Lily's voice, said, "Hey, you've reached Lily and Curtis. We and our engagement rings are out of the house right now, but leave us a message. We'll call you right back!"

Beep.

"Hey, babe," he said, "sorry I didn't call last night. Long story. Uh, my flight at twelve got cancelled so I need you to pick me up at two pm if you can get off work this afternoon. If not, call me back and I'll get a lift with Sean."

#  

A lubricant bottle was on the nightstand. Her jarring vision saw it first.

Joel pounded inside of her body, finishing, as she surfaced from unconsciousness. Her arms were pinned above her head by one of his hands. Lily opened her mouth to cry, tears but no sound.

Joel's body gave one long, lusty quiver. He collapsed against her, catching his breath next to her ear. His voice was suddenly faint with emotion. "Oh God, it gets so bad." He lifted wet eyes. "No-one else gave me a chance. But I was a man when you looked at me and I guess... a man proves himself by taking charge." He sniffed. "Can't believe you spat on me."

He tried to kiss her, then, and Lily thrashed with a feral might, ripping and clawing at him. In the tussle, Joel's bracelet snapped. Black beads pelted the floor. Flushed with new anger, Joel slapped Lily's face. "You stupid bitch, what'd you do that for? Now I have to go find them all!"

#  

Curtis rang his fiancée's cell-phone and rang the home phone again when there was no reply. Because he needed to, he decided to call Suzannah's cell-phone, her number stored in case of emergency. Seems to be shaping up that way.

When she picked up, he got straight to the point. "It's Curtis," he said. "Is Lily with you?"

"No, why?" Suzannah said. "Try the Carson's, or Can-Do Kids."

#  

The phone kept ringing and she wasn't allowed near it. Joel tried to enter Lily's body again and she gave the biggest struggle yet, arms wrestling and slapping with cries of exertion until Joel picked up the knife, wild eyed, and said, "You think this is a fake? A prop? You want to test it out?"

He went for the door and darted down the hallway. Lily stumbled out of bed to follow, to escape. When Joel reappeared in the doorway, he was holding Mallow in mid-air by the scruff. The puppy jerked from side to side and yelped. Joel put the knife to Mallow's chest.

"No, no, don't!" Lily shrieked, raising both hands.

"Well?" Joel hoisted the dog in her direction. She folded back toward the bed. Joel dropped the puppy from a height and Mallow shot away with his tail between his legs. Kicking the door shut, Joel drew nearer. His tone was mollified. "Now, go take a shower. Yes, because you smell. It's not exactly an aphrodisiac."

There was nothing but him. He was the whole room: air, fat like silicone to inhale. She clasped both arms about herself, trying to shelter her breasts.

"Uh, hi, I've seen them?" he said, exaggeratedly. "And they're like lemons, anyway."

Lily's face contorted with fresh tears. The bedside phone set up ringing again. She diverted one step toward it and Joel mirrored the movement. "What are you doing? No, no, no. Nope."

And she held her mouth with both hands, breaking into a wail that started high and finished with a silent, open wheeze. She couldn't feel her body.

Losing all patience, Joel stepped forward and tipped the knife at Lily's throat. "Go get in the bathroom. Right now."

He turned on the spray and tested its heat with one hand while he browsed a bottle of body wash. "How do you say it? You-lang you-lang? Or ill-lang ill-lang?"

Lily stepped into the shower. Squatting over the shower drain, her back pelted by the hot spray, she peed. Glass fogged. Watch him don't let him out of sight. He's coming he's coming he's coming.

Joel pulled open the shower door, a loofah in one hand. "You want me to...?"

She scuttled backward, knocking over bottles, pressing her spine against the wall. Rocks were in her pelvis from the force of his assault.

"Fine, then." He flicked an instructive finger. "Scrub."

He went over to the mirror, squeaking it free of condensation with a single swipe so that his face appeared to him. He held his nose high in the air and rotated his head side to side, fingers idly checking for pimples. Within moments he noticed Lily's inaction in the mirror's reflection. As he pulled open the shower door, Lily lobbed a bar of soap at him, screaming, "I want Curtis, I want Curtis! NO!"

Slap of wet body hitting the tiles. They grappled together. Joel became short of breath, holding his face out of Lily's reach so she couldn't claw him. He bought himself a momentary respite by boxing the side of Lily's face. He reached to flip the shower spray off. "Get up. Hey! Shut up. Go get back on the bed."

When it was over, her shoulders hitched higher and higher for air. With what strength she had left, she felt around in the bedside drawer for an inhaler and hung there on one arm squirting spray into her mouth.

Everything grew smaller in the background. She had the ceiling for a view with Joel's head filling one side. She began to weep again, eyelids like slits.

"This isn't you," Joel complained. "C'mon. Give me one of your smiles."

He placed fingers on both sides of her cheeks and made a key-turning motion, saying, "Where are those dimples?"

Lily jerked her head away.

"Oh, whatever," Joel smarted. "Be a drag."

He clambered off the bed, collecting his shorts from the floor. He went over and opened the curtains. Bright warmth took over the bed. "Just don't marry that guy, okay?" he said. "He's got bad news written all over him."

Hands in fists on the sheets. Lily willed the oxygen into her lungs. Breathe.

Joel pocketed the lubricant and shook his head as he sent one last, lingering glance over her. "If I was him, you'd never see any other room in the house."

Crackling lungs. Blink.

CURTIS!

She faded.

#  

Curtis waved to Sean as the car pulled away from the curb. He walked up the driveway of his home in the lukewarm afternoon breeze. He'd called Lily's workplace and been told she wasn't expected at work that day. She's probably at a philosophy lecture.

With every step he took, he was reminded that Lily had not only neglected to pick him up from the airport, but she hadn't contacted him to explain why.

The next-door neighbor was kneeling on a gardener's pad, turning soil. She waved and called, "How are you?"

"Hi," Curtis called back, disinterestedly. He found the spare key under a flowerpot and let himself in. Setting his luggage down in the foyer, he detoured to the internal access door and leaned out on one leg to glance the garage. The Oldsmobile was in its space. What the hell?

Heading into the kitchen, he spotted Lily's cell-phone lying on the tabletop. He picked it up and read four missed calls. Glancing at the countertop, he saw no breakfast dishes there.

Growingly disconcerted, he raised his voice. "Lil? You home?"

Maybe she's had an asthma attack. Maybe the car broke down again and she took a taxi.

A sudden movement caught his eye. Mallow sat beneath the table in a miserable woolly pile. Curtis bent down, clicking his fingers. "Hey, buddy, what's up?"

With sunken ears, Mallow gave a faint whine. Curtis opened the slider door for the puppy to pee in the backyard. Pigeon droppings all over the patio a silent, precocious 'welcome home'. Curtis gave a begrudging smile. He went to hunt for leftovers in the refrigerator and a gigantic cake box on the middle shelf claimed his attention. It had a purple post-it note stuck to the lid: A yummy welcome home for a yummy boy! PS: Curtis if you see this before I give it to you, you can still be fake-surprised, I won't mind. xx

He grinned, bearing down the hallway to the master bedroom. "Okay, you in there? I'm ready to be fake-surprised-"

Upon reaching the doorway, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared: frozen in place.

Lily lay naked and sprawled on the bed. Pink swelling took up half of her face. Her eyes were at full alert on his face and her jaw hinged open-to-shut like a fish landed out of its bowl.

"Holy shit," he said, creeping forward. He was all-eyes. "Holy shit."

His hands reached for her, then retracted. There were hickies on her neck. The stale smell of sex hung in the air. A tear leaked from one of Lily's eyes and her trembling made the headboard judder briefly against the wall.

"Oh, baby." He bent over her. She tried weakly to move away from his shadow.

"Jesus, what-what happened? Baby, it's okay..."

Keep her safe. The asthma! Fuck, she can't breathe. The inhaler!

He turned and up-ended the bedside drawer, sending different colored inhalers in all directions. I never paid attention. Which one? Quick, squirt.

"Fuck, quick," he said aloud.

Lily's gaze never left him. There was a complete fear in the depths of them like nothing he had ever seen.

"Here, breathe it in," he said. "Is this the right one, baby? The-the red one?"

Lily stopped blinking and just stared. Her lips loosened from around the inhaler nozzle. There was no trembling, no noise. Curtis shook her by the shoulder. "Lil. Hey."

The shaking didn't rouse her. He held one finger beneath Lily's nostrils. No breath. He dropped to his knees. Prising Lily's mouth open, he pumped the inhaler spray into her mouth and trained an ear to her chest. Nothing.

Police! Call the police!

He lunged for the bedside phone. "Uh, police," he said, when the emergency operator asked which service he required. "No, wait, get an ambulance!"

"What is the nature of your emergency?"

"Somebody... I don't know! She won't wake up!"

"Sir? Sir, I need to know the address you're calling from and the nearest intersection."

"T- uh, Tom Pierce Drive. Thousand eighty-five, it's off the southern end of Pico Boulevard."

She was so still.

She's sleeping...

He had developed purple spots in his vision. He lowered his head onto his forearms on the edge of the bed, croaking, "Oh my God."

Dropping the phone, he got up and made unsteadily for the window.

Need air.

Standing there as a breeze wafted into the room, he spotted the neighbor rising from her kneel in the garden. As she stood removing her gardening gloves she caught sight of Curtis's face at the window. She advanced along the strip of lawn that separated their driveways and called out in her foreign accent, "Vot is happen?"

"You!" Curtis cried. "Why the fuck didn't you call the police? Why didn't you turn up your fucking hearing aid?"

The neighbor blanched. She backed away and said something unintelligible. Curtis realized he had made too much noise; that he'd left her alone. He turned back. "Oh, shit, I'm sorry, babe."

Lifting Lily's head with care, he circled his arms around her shoulders like she was a child, leasing his knees into the bedroom carpet. He drew the bed sheet over her to give her that dignity. When he laid his cheek alongside hers, he found her skin chilly like plastic.

"Sleep, alright?" he said. "It's okay. You'll get better."

He took a deep breath and it came out in soft jabs. In the distance he heard a siren scream.

Curtis was watching a movie. It was a movie when the paramedics stooped over Lily and checked for vital signs and shook their heads imperceptibly at one another. The woman standing in front of Curtis spoke slowly, as if to a mentally impaired person. He wasn't listening because the men transferred Lily onto a stretcher and covered her entirely with a sheet. He said, "She can't breathe under that. Hey! She's asthmatic!"

The woman waved unobtrusively in his face to gain his attention. "Sir? I'm so sorry to tell you, there was nothing we could do for your fiancée. I have to ask that we vacate the room immediately. This area is now officially being viewed as a crime scene. And, I'll ask that you don't touch anything further as the police will need to gather evidence when they arrive."

She walked him out, one hand on Curtis's shoulder all the way down the hallway. She walked with a limp. "You'll be expected to answer a few questions for the police about the time surrounding the death."

Reaching the foyer, she stopped and faced him. "How are you managing? Is there anybody we need to call?"

Through the open front door, Curtis stared as red lights from the ambulance hit the outside of the house in syncopation like unkind disco lights. The men spoke into comms on their uniformed shoulders.

#  

The female cop had shampoo-commercial blonde hair. Her male counterpart was built like a barricade and had a droplet of his gums hanging between his front teeth, forcing them apart. A coroner and a medical examiner came. Forensic experts were all over the place, taking photos, bagging things. Curtis was seated at the kitchen table and Mallow cowered beneath his chair.

Detective Sergeant Amanda Rind repeated the question. "So, you have no history of physical violence toward your partner?"

"No," Curtis said, for the second time. "I-I just walked in and found her! Ask whats-her-name from next door. She saw me arrive! I have a plane ticket."

"We have a statement from Mrs Ambrus. We're looking to corroborate it," Amanda said. "She claims to have seen a car pulling up to this address at-" she flipped to a prior page in her notes, "-approximately two thirty pm, and seeing you emerge from the passenger seat. She also claims to have received verbal abuse from you through the master bedroom window sometime around two forty-five. You were, and I quote, 'Furious.' "

Amanda linked fingers on the paperwork, adding with more humanity to her tone, "Try not to take these questions personally if you can. It's simply the way we do our job."

#  

Curtis dialled numbers because he had to dial them.

Grace was silent at first. Then, she began to literally... die down the telephone.

Suzannah dropped the receiver with an ear-bashing clunk. Curtis could hear feet pacing the floor.

His parents weren't home. He left a message on the answering machine and couldn't recall afterward what he'd said.

The garbage collection truck rolled down the street, backfiring as loudly as a twenty-one-gun salute.

He'd have to feed the dog.

Chapter 15

Matt smiled at Penny over the letterbox. She'd stopped by to pick up a child support check, all consideration and femininity. He'd been weaning off the Lily effect and it was easier now because she was arranging to remove herself from his orbit as well.

Penny studied the ground and said, "Matt, I have no partner. On the phone I said I did, but I lied. I guess... I didn't want you to think I was exactly the way I was when we split up."

Matt shook his head. "None of us are exactly the way we were."

Holding out the check, he said, "Is this enough? I can give you more."

And she took it with a shake of her head, going to the curb. Caleb was in the back seat of the car, his small head twisting in the wind from the open window, a lollipop in his mouth.

Matt spoke more loudly than he intended, making Penny turn back. "Stay for coffee. What's the rush?"

"I don't want to intrude." She went to the driver's side. "I'll be in touch."

Stalling for time, he said, "I know someone who can help with Caleb's schooling."

At that, Penny hesitated and approached him again. She wrote down the details, thanking him with a smile; and Matt knew it wasn't just his imagination. Penny looked at him differently as she left.

#  

Curtis was on bereavement leave from work. The neighbor, Mrs Ambrus, left a tray of freshly baked brownies on the front doorstep.

Curtis supplied the cops with a sample of his semen to compare with the sample the coroner had taken from Lily's body. It was the ultimate stress to produce: a feeling of perversity that soured him afterward, having to bring himself to the point of stimulation when he'd just found out that his life had changed forever.

He rang Can-Do Kids and quit Lily's job for her.

He rang the dean of teaching and the dean of philosophy, because she wasn't going to need their knowledge any more. He talked and he listened, absorbing their shock like a sponge.

The cards flooded in: flowers too, and teddy bears. People wrote, "Only the good die young..." "God wanted her to himself..." "Death isn't the end; just think of it like Lily's in the other room."

Aloud, he said, "Which room?" and he dropped the card in the trash.

#  

Gary hauled the painting inside, walking sideways to ease it into the foyer of Curtis's home. It was a painting of the Hollywood Hills; the Hollywood sign blurred as if it had been over-pixelated.

"I commissioned a friend of mine. It's the only one of its kind," Gary smiled, the closest to compassion that he could get.

Curtis said, "Uh, thanks."

How does he not know? This is no 'artwork giving' occasion. We didn't just conclude a business deal.

Helen hovered discreetly behind Gary, murmuring, "I hate to rush this, I do - but the opera starts in twenty minutes and traffic's already congested."

"We'll leave you to it," Gary said.

Helen dropped a kiss on Curtis's cheek. "I'm so sorry," she said, and her eyes watered. "She was just lovely. We couldn't believe it when we heard." Looking to her husband, she said, "Could we?"

"We couldn't, no." Gary shook his head at the painting. "Terrible waste. She was a... a real sweet little thing."

Curtis took the painting when it was handed to him, thinking, who are you people?

Once his parents had gone, he put the painting in the living room, facing it to the wall beside the television.

He went into the kitchen and stood gazing around the kitchen space.

The cupboards were full of cups and plates and Tupperware.

The cupboards were full. Of cups and plates and Tupperware.

That was what he felt.

Mallow stalked in with one of Lily's socks clenched between his teeth, the item Lily had always given the puppy to comfort him. Mallow occasionally trod on the sock and yanked his head higher to free it as he walked.

Curtis powered the radio that sat on the windowsill above the sink. The radio host announced the song Sad Robot as it played its opening bars, and it was perfect: perfect, because the lyrics were in a foreign language, like he'd been asked to complete a jigsaw puzzle without having seen the box lid first. Guitar strings were plucked and a thin-voiced girl sang as Curtis looked out into the backyard. He saw a flock of pigeons descend on the fence and they perched, flapping there; waiting for bread.

#  

Curtis sat on the arm of the living room sofa two days later, staring at the phone in his hand while seconds drained away to form the immediate past. One, two, three...

He didn't want to see the Oldsmobile every time he entered the garage.

Five, six... seven, eight, nine...

He'd have to do it. He couldn't stand another artifact reminding him that nothing was the way he'd left it on that flight out of town. He dialled the Carson's number. When Grace answered, he said, "Hi. It's Curtis. Can I drop the Oldsmobile at your place this afternoon?"

Pounding on the back door for the third time, he gave up expecting Grace Carson to be home. In the two hours since the phone call, she had obviously forgotten he was dropping by. Curtis wended down the verandah steps and had cornered the house when he heard the back door swing open with a loud creak. He doubled back. Grace materialized on the top step, casting a quizzical glance around, and the sight of her was a shock - like all the color had been drained from her face overnight. She looked every one of her sixty-odd years, with bags under her eyes and her hair bereft of hairspray.

With only dim awareness, she hooked an arm through the air. "Oh, sorry, honey. I was upstairs. Come in."

Hesitating a moment, Curtis followed. He hadn't planned on staying. I'll have to talk.

As Grace closed the door behind them, Beau hollered from the direction of the den: not angry exactly, just a little too strongly. "Gracie, are we going to fix this shelf?"

Grace encouraged Curtis toward the table, raising her voice. "I'm coming! Just give me a God-blessed minute will you?"

She flicked the jug to boil, keeping her back to Curtis. "Coffee, honey?"

"Thanks," he said.

Potted herbs were arrayed on the sill above the sink, back-dropped by an eye-level lace curtain. Through the window there was a view of un-consigned fence posts and a wheelbarrow on the lawn.

"Coffee?" Grace said, then, "Oh, you said yes already."

Curtis watched the slow droop of Grace's shoulders, her head lifting a little at the same time. He stood and went to Grace's side in time to collect her at the elbow as she flagged sideways. She averted her face and leaned on the counter with her free arm, shaking her head. "My baby!" she wailed. "She was just my baby..."

Curtis guided Grace toward a kitchen chair. She sat heavily and rocked into her hands, emitting slow mourning sounds that Curtis's ears hadn't heard before: sounds that dropped into the well of motherhood and found no end.

Curtis stood uselessly by and went to finish spooning instant coffee into the waiting mugs. Old man Carson yelled in the background again. This time he received no reply. Curtis assumed that Grace took milk with her coffee and he added a spoonful of sugar for good measure. He set the mug before her and pulled up a chair of his own.

Grace ferreted a tissue from her sleeve and she grew quiet, dabbing at her cheeks. Older, earlier tears had crystallized into fine powder in the crows-feet around her eyes. She held the coffee mug to her chest, then, like the cup was holding her up instead of the other way around. Curtis sat opposite her and drank his coffee down in four, scalding gulps. He jogged his leg on the spot. You can't drink and run. You can't. Drink and run.

Eventually, Grace said, "Have you heard anything?"

"The cops are pushing it as much as they can. Should get results in the next couple weeks."

"How did... h-how did she look?"

Curtis shook his head.

"No, I shouldn't ask," Grace said, retiring behind her mug. "D'you need any money? For the...?"

She couldn't bring herself to say the word funeral. Her eyes refilled with tears but she managed to hold herself together. "I know you insisted on covering the expenses, but if you need anything, you just say the word."

"It's okay," Curtis reassured. "I can use some of the seed money from the business."

"And how are you holding up?"

Cue to leave. Curtis went and stopped his mug in the sink. "Alright."

He pointed to the Oldsmobile keys on the table. "I parked it as far to the side as I could so there's room for Mr Carson to get to his tools 'n whatnot."

Curtis crossed to open the back door when Grace said, "She knew, didn't she?"

He glanced back.

"She knew the kindness in you that was hard for someone like me to see." Grace smiled at him, and Curtis felt that it was the first time the old woman had actually, truly seen him.

"You stay in touch," she said, softly. "Will you do that?"

He swung the door open. That was when the thought hit him, in doing all those things: dropping off the car, only thinking of getting away... without Lily and without that connection these people will simply fade from my life, now. Yet, it held none of the relief he once imagined it would during those early years when he and Lily had discussed the possibility of moving elsewhere to be free of apron strings and interminable family gatherings.

"You take care," he said. And he meant it.

#  

Before leaving for the church office that Monday morning, Matt dialled Lily's home phone. Curtis picked up. " 'Lo?"

"Hi. It's Matt Livingston. We met at the-"

"Yeah, I know," Curtis interjected, "the engagement."

"Uh, is Lily there by any chance? I can't seem to raise her on her mobile."

There was a distinct silence. "No," Curtis replied.

Matt raised his eyebrows. "Okay. What time might she be available?"

"She's not. Available."

Matt half-rolled his eyes, but his tone remained friendly. "Right. Can you just tell her that I called? It's about my friend trying to get her son into that special school. It's pretty urgent."

There was a protracted silence. "Hello?" Matt pressed.

"She's gone," Curtis said.

Matt went to lock the front door behind him but stilled on the doorstep with the key stuck halfway in. "What do you mean gone? As in, gone on vacation?"

"No, sh-... she's really gone. She died."

Pulling an incredulous face as he walked, Matt hefted the garage door open. "I'm aware that you dislike me, Curtis. Even so, that's got to be the most extreme put-off I've ever heard."

When Curtis gave no reply, Matt frowned. His arm stayed where it was above his head, clamped on the garage door. "That was just a put-off, right?"

#  

As days passed, Matt suffered twin anxieties: awaiting the verdict of the church council as they deliberated his future, and suffering Lily's absence. It hit him at sudden moments, like a period mark at the end of a sentence. Washing dishes, he would catch sight of himself in the window.

Lily's dead.

Whenever he made a phone call he would stare at the receiver and think, she'll never call me again.

He missed her honest face, the bright brown eyes he thought he'd never have to completely do without. The unusual way she posed questions with the humor always thrown in: her personality a strange, beguiling mix of being goofy and completely serious.

He kept his heart charging with caffeine. Penny called for the weekly check and she was slow to open up to him, as if he was the one who needed forgiving for desertion in the past. He knew it, now. He'd moved on from the early days, but that was worlds away from forgiveness. And that other face, the flower-name that robbed him of sleep the most, the face he'd never see again: she came back to him in full-blooded, truly sweet sound-bites. 'You were a pleasant cul-de-sac to visit.'

Late one evening, Matt stood in the middle of his living room feeling stripped bare. He stared at the fish tank, that world within a world. Chainsaw has it better, he thought as he watched the turtle paddling lazily. He doesn't have that capacity, that haunting habit of the human mind to ask 'why'?

He crossed to the piano, settling in front of the keys. Yet, as he placed his right hand on a chord, it sounded unreal: like notes put together that couldn't do their job properly; as if he, himself, had become one of the music students he tutored.

His leather-bound Bible rested on the piano upright. He took it down and laid it open.

Oh God. The God he'd talked about with ease at all the funerals and weddings and prayer rallies he had taken in Young Adult circles for over five ministry years. He filtered through to the gospel of Luke where Jesus cried out from the cross as the guards drove nails into his body: 'Father forgive them, they know not what they do.'

And, as Jesus bled dry in agony, 'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?'

Matt crawled hands over his skull and he slowly bent double, sliding off the piano stool to the ground. He pressed his face into the carpet, nearer to his God and further from Him in that one moment than he had ever dared to imagine. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do...

"No," he said.

Lily, and whoever caused her life to end...

His night of love with Penny...

"Father, forgive us," he whispered. "Because, at some level, we know exactly what we do."

#  

Curtis held the three-page Summary Autopsy Report in his hands, received from the chief medical examiner of LA County that morning. His eyes picked at each word with ferocity, demanding resolution from every syllable.

... Both lungs were voluminous and the bronchi filled with tenacious mucus plugs... thymus enlarged... right ventricle was hypertrophied... Urogenital system: vagina contained foreign matter, vaginal bruising, semen swabs taken for DNA testing: no match found. Unidentified assailant. Skin found under victim's fingernails and toenails, evidence of victim's struggle.

He rifled to the end of the report and read, Summary of findings: the manner of death is determined to be Acute Respiratory Failure.

#  

Suzannah crowded over the crystal ball in the dim darkness. She would will her best friend back into the room: see and hear her one last time, and find a way to understand some small, infinitesimal part of it all.

Candles adrift around the room, the oil on her palms, she rallied every ounce of focus from her mind. White lights and cavalcades of the Egyptian pantheon that seemed slipping from her grasp, she started up the mantra: "Hail Odin, with your mighty arm. Hail Osiris, judge of the dead, I summon you and I summon the power of my forebears. I call to my sisters from centuries past. I take your strength and your power into myself and I ask for a sign... enter, as I part the veil, as I cross the threshold of the great mystery. Show my lifetime friend to me."

The ball remained static.

"Hail mighty Osiris, father of the souls of the dead. Hear me!"

Her eyes fluttered open. She croaked, now. "Hail... Odin."

The ball might as well have been from a bargain bin. She struck the ball from the table and wept into the pit of her hand.

#  

Meghan Elderman played hopscotch down a row of gravestones and stopped to pat one as if it were the head of a dog. Dana called out sharply and when Meghan arrived before her she turned the child bodily and held her in against her thighs, two palms on the small chest cavity. The little girl's voice rose in question. "Why is Aunty Lily in the box?"

Dana replied, "Her body is in the box but her heart has gone to heaven to be with Jesus and the angels."

Curtis looked around himself. What was I doing when it happened? He thought. While I browsed that magazine in the airport bookstore, was the attacker already...?

He saw Grace Carson lick her thumb and rub at a spot on Beau's cheek.

While I was waiting at the luggage claim for my suitcase, was Lily fighting for her life?

Brendan had an arm around Suzannah's waist and his face was earnestly before hers in speech while Suzannah stared at the ground as if she had been bodily paused.

How the cars in the parking lot moved, backing and filling into spaces: people with their faces full of eyes, and mouths, their hands gesticulating. Palm trees moved in a slow nod like they were courting: everything so alive. How is it that everywhere I look, there she - isn't?

The universe had simply removed her. Retracted her like a statement. Yet, Los Angeles hadn't noticed. Los Angeles went on.

Curtis's nose tickled a little at the back as if he had inhaled a hot spice. Newly turned dirt was piled around the coffin. How dare you go somewhere I can't follow? How dare you?

He'd only attended one other funeral in his life at the age of nine - the death of his mother's sister, Julie, who had died in a hit-and-run accident. The memory came back to him with a will of its own.

He hadn't been able to cry. After all, he'd only met her a few times in his life: those few visits she made between rounds of jet setting to exotic countries. Rory, more attuned to sorrow, was quiet to the point of being mute when the news hit.

His mother drank Scotch-on-the-rocks at the house during the wake, and she stared at him from across the room with accusing eyes. He tried to be near her and she turned immediately to talk to the woman beside her. That night, in his bedroom, Curtis practiced crying before his bedroom mirror. The following morning he found his mother curled dismally on the living room sofa with his father standing nearby, one elbow resting on the mantelpiece. The air in the room was tight: wordless. Curtis stood and said what he'd rehearsed. "Mom, I couldn't sleep last night because I was crying about Aunty Jules."

He'd done it. He had given his sadness to his mother like a gift, though it meant little to him because he hadn't wished his Aunt dead - but then, he'd never particularly needed her alive in order to be happy.

His mother stirred upright and smiled briefly at him with hope, when Gary spoke out. "Boys don't cry, son."

Helen lowered her head again and she covered her face with her wedding hand. Curtis looked to Gary, who nodded just once and said again, "Boys don't cry."

Now, standing at the forefront of the mourning crowd where lovers were expected to stand, it suddenly hit Curtis how ludicrous the stereo system was that had been set up beside the coffin. Probably something Grace Carson dug out of the attic and dusted off for the occasion, he thought. The Episcopalian priest in his robes intoned Psalm twenty-three from an open Bible to anyone who would listen. " 'I wilt fear no evil, for Thou art with me...' "

Word of her death had spread quickly amongst those who knew Lily best and the gravesite was well attended. Matt Livingston wore dark sunglasses and he held Grace's shoulders with both hands like he was measuring her. Beau stared off at an avenue of willow trees as if this was some dull festival.

The stereo regained Curtis's attention: sitting tall and square and bulked out, the sort of stereo that people carried on their shoulders in the nineteen-nineties before the walkman was introduced. A soft, warm voice sang to a somber piano accompaniment, Be Still My Soul.

He contained his smile at first, his eyes on the stereo. Then, he turned aside, his shoulders beginning to shake with suppressed laughter. Suzannah's face was a puffy, sodden mess by now, and she wore no stitch of makeup or jewelry for the first time in Curtis's living memory. She approached and took Curtis by the arm, leading him out of earshot of the other mourners.

"What is so funny?" she demanded. They stood in the shade of a twisted oak tree.

Curtis's laughter faded and he tweaked at his shirt cuffs. The cufflinks had cost him two hundred dollars.

"That ghetto blaster," he said. "It's so fucking prehistoric."

He popped his knuckles. Sunshine blared down and caused his armpits to prick with sweat.

Suzannah shook her head, turning on her heel. "You're an asshole."

Curtis scanned the group of mourners. That's my place.

He jogged to catch up, yet when Suzannah heard his footfall in the grass she snapped over her shoulder, "No-one wants you if you're going to laugh."

So he stood on the spot and watched Suzannah go, her garb flinching in the breeze: dressed in her usual black as if she had always known the end was coming. He put out his hand because he felt for a moment like he was falling. He loosened his tie, eased open the top button of his shirt and stood with hands-on-hips, gazing at the trees and the gravestones with a giant marble angel overseeing it all nearby.

He had had laser eye surgery when he was fifteen years old. I never told her that.

People threw handfuls of dirt at the coffin as it was lowered.

They wouldn't throw handfuls of dirt at her if she were standing in front of them, so why now?

He swallowed, wheeling in the opposite direction, and headed to where all the cars were parked in their tidy gleaming rows.

Chapter 16

As Suzannah washed dishes in the kitchen sink, she had to stand a little ways back. Her stomach was now a small, intrusive mound. She had stopped vomiting for the time being and Brendan had been showering her with treats.

It made her happier. And it left her feeling suspicious.

She tracked back to the table to gather dirty dishes. Brendan was there with his umpteenth bottle of beer, riveted to a portable game console. She stacked plates loudly to win his attention. She received it briefly as Brendan looked up to swig from the bottle.

"Oh, I'm sorry, was that too noisy?" she asked.

Brendan resumed his game without comment. The console made tiny echoing sounds of gunfire and explosions. Suzannah eyed the beer bottle. She leaned on the knuckles of one hand and went to reach for it. With a lightning reflex, Brendan whisked up the bottle and frowned at her. "What are you doing?"

She stood there, feeling small and peaky and pregnant. "Give it to me."

"No way! It'll hurt the baby."

"Oh, you never seem to mind that it hurts me, all your fucking guzzling!"

"I've been better lately! You said so yourself."

Suzannah padded away with the dirty plates. "Well, you don't invite your friends over for all-nighters," she said. "You're just completely out of touch with me and half the time you can't even perform in bed with the amount you take."

She scrubbed dishes, tear-blind. She didn't hear Brendan approach. He slipped his arms around her waist. She twisted weakly in resistance and kept scrubbing. "Don't you have some stupid game to play?"

"Babe, I'll give up drinking," he said.

She turned to look him square in the eye. Suds dripped from her hands to splat the ground between their feet. "Don't say it if you don't mean it," she said, "Or, I'll drive your ass out."

She took Brendan's hands and laid them on her belly. "Swear on both of us if you really mean it."

Brendan simply stood there and breathed for a moment. Presently, his gaze climbed the length of Suzannah's dress, over the baby bulge and up her neck, coming to a halt at her run-for-cover eyes. "I swear," he said.

#  

Matt walked the perimeter of the crèche room at the Santa Monica Community Church for the fifth time. He was early for his spiritual hearing with the church leadership. Lord Jesus, I fall on your mercy... I'm here to please you, and you alone.

It had been a week of work as usual, with Carol occasionally asking him with a cheekiness that boarded on callous, "You behaving yourself?"

He deduced from this that Carol had found and read the draft of his letter to the council weeks ago. Yet he couldn't find it in himself to call Carol to task.

He wanted to see the back of her for a while. He wanted to be believed.

Checking occasionally for signs of activity beyond the doors that lead to the auditorium, he stopped pacing and stared into a toy box.

"Once more, with feeling," he said to a Shape-O toy. He rehearsed the speech in his mind once more.

I appreciate that in order for the council to make a just call regarding my ministry position, you will require a context. I grew up in a spiritual home, immersed in the culture of the Salvation Army. My parents were Generals in their corps. During my teen years, however, the climate of command-and-obedience in our family caused me to become relationally distant from my parents. I likewise came to view church and the Bible as being out-of-touch with the realities of my life. I fell away from those circles - until the day that I met a girl fresh from Bible camp. She opened my eyes to a whole new meaning of God and Christianity.

Over time, I found passion and a new direction - that of becoming a minister. We dated for four years. The relationship ended in my final year at seminary, due to the fact that the woman and I spent a night together. This was a one-time-only occurrence. However, the moral and emotional implications of the situation left us both struggling with guilt that did not find immediate resolve. In telling you of these events, I'm not asking to be excused, but to be understood. After that one night, as I purposed to live before God, so I have done.

I recognize my human nature in a fallen world, and I am under no condemnation because I have been honest before God and I trust that He will answer my prayers to be renewed. In the bigger picture of the Bible, I see that no human failing can end His love for me...

At that moment, Matt caught sight of a man through the doors who rallied one hand in the air for come.

#  

Curtis phoned detective sergeant Amanda Rind every other day. He was informed that the police had no leads on the identity of Lily's attacker. Spurred on in everyday life by an energy he could not name, Curtis began to work seven-day weeks; no longer for the money he had always craved but to avoid his barren house. He finally made the call. He put the house on the market. The realtor said what a shame, such a brilliant first home as she walked through the place and he had simply stared arrows at her until she looked away.

He took money from the Carson loan and, feeling newly wealthy, fulfilled the first item of his lifelong wish list by stopping in at West LA's premiere car dealership. He would repay himself from the eventual sale of the house. All that mattered for now was just that: now. He declined the salesman's offer of a test drive. He wanted to simply speed away in the Dodge Viper Coupe and know that it was actually his.

That evening in bloodshot sunset, clouds in his windshield like small tumours, he cruised the streets of West Hollywood in his dream machine. Curtis's eyes devoured the bucket seats, leather steering wheel and leather shift knob, all encased in pale brown leather. He knew every tailored inch of its pedigree.

Multi-point fuel injection, zero-to-one hundred miles and back in eleven seconds flat...

He planned to sell his RX8 for less than it was worth, for expediency, having less reason to be frugal now. As he slowed for traffic lights, he stared at a young couple strolling along the sidewalk, hand-in-hand.

Couples...

He blocked the thought and encouraged, instead, the sense of pride he felt in owning the type of machine he'd wanted since childhood - tacking up bedroom posters of Dodge models on his bedroom walls.

Decelerating into corners and speeding into long stretches of lane, he headed for the nearest freeway, shooting the gearshift from second into third and to fourth, itching to cut loose. The hot orange pearl-coat of the hood made the sky liquefy in reflection.

The following day, Curtis headed for his parents' house in the upwardly mobile community of Brentwood. He smirked at every gated driveway; disdained every sky-bound Jacaranda and Palm tree. He'd never truly needed his parents. He never would. This visit would be his memo to them.

As the Coupe growled to a stop just short of his parents' home, he watched Gary Sloane set a pair of secateurs on top of a half-trimmed hedge. Curtis emerged from the driver seat. Hands in pockets, Gary drew closer and nodded approval over the vehicle's bodywork. Father and son briefly met eyes.

Gary tipped his shoe at the alloy wheels. "Eighteens?"

"Yeah."

"What'd you pay for her?"

"What you'd expect to pay," Curtis said, working the nonchalance. He proceeded to pull a check from his jeans. "This is the storage amount in full for the month. I'm sending a truck to put the gear into commercial storage tomorrow."

Gary took the check without a word. He held his curiosity on a leash, but only just. "Your mother told me you've been given a loan for business interests. You looking to invest any of it?"

"Got a few ideas," Curtis said, retreating to the car.

"Well, just don't throw it around like confetti," Gary said. "I know you."

Curtis stopped where he stood. His entire lifetime seemed caught there in that second, holding that door-handle, wanting to name - to shout - a thousand accusations at his father, the man who knew him least of all. Instead, Curtis donned his sunglasses and slid behind the wheel, revving the V-8 engine with one pump of the gas.

He reversed rapidly down the driveway and sent the tires squealing briefly as he sped away down the street, catching sight of Gary's face in the rear view mirror with its hint of jealousy that was more than enough to satisfy him.

Chapter 17

Curtis stared at the phone receiver until he had the resolve to dial the number. He couldn't stand the woman, but he needed her this once.

Suzannah answered. "Hello?"

"Hi, it's Curtis," he said.

There was a long pause before Suzannah said, "Yeah?"

"D'you know anyone who wants a puppy?"

There was a shuffling noise at Suzannah's end of the line. "Not really," she said. "I can't, anyway. I'm having a kid."

"Right. Yeah. I asked my workmates but they won't take him. And my family aren't exactly animal people."

Curtis wondered why he'd rung, why he'd figured that Suzannah Fry was a good bet. Then, her smoky voice said, "Leave it to me," and she hung up.

#  

Suzannah looked between Grace and Dana over the Carson's kitchen table. It was the day following Curtis's phone call. "So, Curtis has a puppy he can't keep. Any ideas?"

"Beau's a full time occupation," Grace said. "I'm afraid that a puppy would be... well, I'm just not that young any more."

"Phil and I already have a dog," Dana said.

"Okay. Thought it was worth a try." Suzannah linked hands on the tabletop.

"You... came all the way here just to ask that?" Dana asked.

"No. While I've got you both here, there's something else I want to ask. Do you know anything about Lily's background pre-adoption? She never asked, out of consideration for your family. Still, she wanted to know. And I think it does justice to her memory to set the record straight."

Grace propped her chin in her hand, staring dimly at Suzannah's baby bulge. Something infinitely sad crossed her expression without her seeming conscious of it.

Dana said, "With all due respect, Suzannah, this isn't your discussion to have."

Suzannah smiled, but it felt more like a smudge of her lips. "Here's the deal. Lily forgave you everything because she wanted your approval. I have no such incentive. And, I'm telling you now, don't pull that 'concerned sister' card with me. I have more love for Lily in my pinkie finger than you do in your entire body and if anybody is permitted to ask this kind of question on Lily's behalf, it is - unequivocally - me."

Dana stared back for a moment with an unchanged expression. Then, she nodded. "Fine. Yes, we didn't always get along. It was solely my parent's decision to adopt Lily."

Turning to Grace, over twenty-five years worth of silence ended when Dana said, "I was happy being an only child. Nobody consulted me! I swore I'd never do the same thing to my own daughter. If the IVF doesn't work and Meghan doesn't want another child involved, we would never adopt. Never."

"Oh, honey," Grace said, her voice folding. "I was so sure we asked you."

"Well, Mom?" Dana shook her hair out of her eyes. "You didn't. You just raised the idea, and the next thing I knew we were in Family Court signing the papers."

Dana drew her eyelids to a close, collecting herself. "Look, it's just... it's so far in the past. It really doesn't matter."

"Clearly, it does," Grace said.

God, after all these years, Suzannah thought, all the confusion that Lily felt about Dana's dislike of her and a little directness tapped straight into the vein of familial discord.

Of Grace, she said, "Just tell me everything, Mrs Carson. Please."

The kitchen was swamped in silence. Grace's voice finally emerged. "My friend Betty and I were friends from our early nursing days. We were like sisters. We stayed in touch during our younger years, swapping photos of our daughters."

She wiped her eyelashes with a fingertip. "Betty's daughter, Alexis, became a music teacher. In her early twenties, she became unexpectedly pregnant and was emotionally unstable throughout the pregnancy. More so after the birth."

Grace squinted at Suzannah as if looking back through the passage of time. "Alexis refused to keep the baby. Betty insisted that if Alexis didn't keep the child, then she herself would take up the responsibility. After weeks of argument, Alexis made the move without Betty's blessing, and put her baby - Lily - into a children's home."

Suzannah gazed between the two women, incredulous. "You knew Lily's birth mother? All this time?"

"Let me finish," Grace murmured. "Betty's plans stood. She aimed to retire from nursing within three years of Lily's birth. By then, she would've saved enough money to manage on State dispensation. But, during that first year, Betty discovered she had Parkinson's disease. She called me with the dilemma. The disease activity was advancing so rapidly that within two years she would be virtually helpless."

Grace's voice changed. It came from a geographical distance. "Beau and I knew we had to do it, for Betty's sake. She had no one else to turn to. So, we... we took her in."

Suzannah felt the story had an almost anti-climactic feel to it, as if all of Lily's unanswered questions deserved a better grounding than this. She frowned. "Why all the mystery, then? Why didn't you tell Lily about this years ago?"

"Because Lily thought we'd planned the adoption for years. If she'd known that it was-"

"-More of a duty, a favor," Dana supplied.

Grace nodded. "After Dana, there were so many miscarriages and I was so unwell that Beau and I gave up trying. Honestly? Adoption was never a thought. We'd moved on from the grief of the miscarriages, and we were-" she reached out with new tenderness in her face to squeeze Dana's hand. "We were satisfied."

"Okay," Suzannah pressed. "But, why not tell Lily that you knew Alexis? Am I missing something here? Was Alexis a crazy person or something?"

Grace mummed her lips. "No. It was the circumstance surrounding the, uh, the conception that factored in. That was what we wanted to keep from Lily."

Tears escaped Grace's eyes. She didn't mop them up. "You won't believe this, considering everything. I question it myself..."

Suzannah leaned in. "What, Mrs Carson?"

Faintly, Grace said, "Alexis was raped. And Lily was born as a result."

#  

The house sold. Curtis shook the young couple by the hand and resented the glowing plans in their eyes. He asked for two weeks grace to sort out what to do with the household contents, hinting at a personal loss that had earned him this leeway. The couple, moist eyed with sympathy, readily agreed. He cleared the mortgage and chose a month-by-month lease with a view of the ocean. The condo boasted resident cleaners and a communal gymnasium. Here, there was no further need to worry about making the bed or re-using dirty dishes in order to avoid washing them. It would all be someone else's problem.

Suzannah called and reported that there were no takers for the puppy. He would have to take Mallow to the local dog shelter. Everything was his call now.

#  

As Matt climbed the stairs in the church auditorium that Sunday morning, he carried every second of his five years with him: the times he'd preached, the times he'd helped to conduct baptisms, or prayed over someone going out onto the mission field. These people had written him, and every face in the congregation held him together as if this were any other Sunday morning. But, something broke through the seeming normality of it all as senior minister Terence Breen put an arm around his shoulders and spoke into the microphone. He gave no facts about Matt's dismissal, instead inferring that Matt, himself, had decided to resign from his duties as a result of emotional burnout.

The irony didn't escape him; of skewing the truth to explain his leaving, and in skewing the truth, making his own beliefs feel like a forgery. That was the 'something' that made this Sunday morning different to any other. While many of the faces looked on in shock, and most with sadness, some looked on as if he'd already left and they were contemplating who would take his place.

It felt like he was alive at his own burial.

#  

Curtis and his colleagues danced to the club music, twisting and jostling on the packed dance floor. Strobe lights picked up their faces. Nikki danced, holding onto Curtis's hips and occasionally yelling things in his ear. He hadn't had this much to drink since the engagement party. He began to lose his sense of balance. He shouted rounds of shooters at the bar. The DJ played his request and a random girl tried to snog him. Another hour passed and the designated LA alcohol curfew of two am came into effect. Curtis and his workmates spilled outside into the fresh night air.

Sean struck him companionably on the back. "Let's get you home, buddy."

"I'll get him home," Nikki assured, loudly. She rubbed Curtis' shoulders with both hands. "Earth to drunk boy, hello-o?"

A couple from earlier inside the club were involved in a fight, yelling in each other's face and the bouncers tried to keep them apart.

How can you be so angry? Curtis thought. You're both still alive.

Sean hailed a cab. As it pulled over, he ushered Curtis and Nikki into the backseat, saying, "Put your wallet away. It's my shout, buddy."

Ensconced in the backseat, Curtis stared at the driver's neck and became transfixed by a birthmark inches long below the man's ear.

"Where you headed?" the driver asked of the rear-view mirror, pulling out into traffic.

Curtis grinned at the passing street. "Uh... wait. Where do I live?"

Nikki bounced excitedly beside him as if they were playing a trivia game. "Ooh, wait! Is it that place... the stone lions at the doors - the big fountain thing!"

"Seresin Court?" the driver called, dubiously. "You wanna go to Seresin Court?"

Nikki leaned forward, patting the driver with inebriated affection. "You're a smart guy, you know that? Hardly any clues at all!" She swayed and began to stare at the birthmark on the man's neck. "Hey, what's up with the birthmark? Dude, this is LA! You don't have to put up with that! I know this awesome cosmetic surgeon in the Hills-"

"Let the guy drive," Curtis said. "Jeez Christ! How much you drink anyway?"

Nikki waggled a finger in his face. "Not as much as you-u. But, thassakay."

She drew a self-important breath, adjusting the spaghetti straps of her dress. "I kin... I kin drink with dignity."

She hovered at his apartment door, her hands on Curtis's chest. He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no, either. She followed him inside with a giggle and shut the door. They collapsed on the bed and fell immediately asleep. Some time later Curtis awoke to feel Nikki stroking his thigh. She had unbuttoned his shirt. She began to kiss his abdomen and then to unzip his jeans. Four am on the alarm clock. Two hours of sleep, and the alcohol level in his system had dropped enough to allow his body to respond to her encouragement. "Nik, c'mon, no," he said, but his body held mutiny.

Nikki crept over him on all fours and her mouth was suspended just above his. She delivered the tiniest flick of her tongue on his lips and whispered, "Really?"

They exploded into the following second and stripped one another in a scramble of hands and arms, landing hard, misplaced kisses. He saw it all in snatches, the way her body began to bounce above him and the cries she made - loud - like something he'd downloaded off the Internet.

Afterward, he hauled his legs out of bed and switched on the bedside lamp. Nikki curled around his back like a sling, her legs at angles down the mattress. Curtis glanced at Nikki's toes. Jesus Christ. I don't recognize them, he thought. They weren't the toes he knew so well: toes that would never dream of sporting black nail polish or a toe ring.

"Oh my God." He lowered his head in his hands.

"Mm, you got that right," Nikki said, kissing his shoulder blade. "I haven't come like that in years."

At six am he awoke with razor blades in his head. Morning light squeezed around the curtains; not a warmed-up yellow, as yet, but murky gray like bones on an X-ray. He felt his way upright in the slanting room. From the tops of his eyes he saw Nikki sitting with her feet in the kitchen sink. She was cutting her toenails.

Seeing him stir, Nikki waved, bright as a button. "Hope you don't mind, I dialled for take-out on your credit card. Your fridge is just full of protein shakes."

Her toenails made a plink sound as they struck the stainless steel surround and she said, "I really don't know who I am, you know? I think I do and the moment I think I'm sure? Bam! Unsure again." Nikki stared out from under her tussled morning hair. "I don't want you to think that I do this all the time."

She gazed at him, expecting a comment or personal affirmation. A knock sounded on the apartment door. Nikki alighted to answer it. Curtis hurriedly covered his crotch with a pillow. Nikki collected the takeout bag, tipping the man as he left.

"God, this smells good." She produced a burger and unwrapped it, taking a generous bite. Curtis smelled recent sex on himself. He smelled fast food that made him nauseous. Nikki sat beside him on the bed and said, "Look, I'll leave if you want me to, Curt. Just say the word."

His hands jarred forward; eyes tightly shut. "It's Curtis, okay? My name \- is Curtis."

After a moment, Nikki stiffly said, "Fine."

She got to her feet, returning to the kitchenette. "You can lie to yourself all you want, Curtis, but I know the way you've been looking at me all these years. I may not be Lil Miss Homemaker or whatever, but-"

Curtis raised his head. "What'd you say?"

Nikki spoke through a mouthful of burger, shrugging. "No disrespect, but I always thought she was a little... prairie-ish."

"You what?"

Nikki sobered.

"You want to know who you are?" Curtis asked. "You were saying before that you didn't know. I'll tell you. You're the girl whose name a guy can never remember the morning after. Erin... Holly... Amy, that's who you are. You're anyone."

A split second later, Nikki launched her burger at Curtis's head. He ducked and saw a meat patty splat across the sheets. The burger buns landed side by side like bra cups on the bed. Nikki tore off the shirt she was wearing - his shirt - and lobbed it at him. The buttons stung his cheek.

"Fuck you!" she shouted. "What a surprise, just another giant asshole."

She pulled on last night's dress, clamped her shoes and handbag under one arm. She made the apartment windows rattle as she slammed the door in her wake.

#  

Matt was discovering that some thoughts occurred to him that he could not change. This is the valley of the shadow...

As he hunkered down and packed theological books into boxes he avoided reading the titles and jacket blurbs with their proposed wisdom. His veins felt like catacombs. No fist shaking at God, at the church, or at himself: only a vast, colorless emptiness stretching ahead of him with the unspoken question, how will I end?

Carol arrived in the office doorway. She inspected him from that distance. Matt could feel her eyes. "Need help?" she asked.

Matt hefted a box onto the desk with a bare glance in her direction. "Thanks, I'm almost done."

"I hope you remember some of the good times here, too, Matt."

He began to peel photos of church camp activities from the wall behind his desk. He was literally taking down his joy: countless moments captured, of hikes and barbecues, prayer rallies, go-carting competitions, volleyball, youth dances, kayaking; fundraisers, weddings, birthdays...

He gathered two boxes in his arms, eyeing Carol above the stack. "Actually, could you run ahead of me and open the trunk?"

"Sure thing." Carol swiped Matt's car keys from the desk and hastened out the door.

Echoes of Psalm twenty-three haunted his mind. 'You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies...'

He had once preached on the verse, shedding light on the etymology of the phrase.

"This was not a statement from David that God prepared a 'banquet' for him as we may imagine. 'Table' was a Hebraic phrase for a method that shepherds used to protect sickly sheep in their flock. At night, when one or two of the youngest or sickliest sheep were at their most vulnerable, shepherds would set three rods on the ground as a perimeter to deter predators and the shepherd himself formed the fourth perimeter. The shepherd was the door. He would lie awake all night and protect those sheep with his life..."

Carol helped Matt to relay other office effects to the car, including his chair and a potted palm. Only the desk stayed behind, sinless in its space. With the last load in, Matt clapped the trunk shut. He wished Carol no ill but he would not mourn the loss of her involvement in his life.

Her golden hair lit by the sun like favoritism, Carol said, "Matt, be assured that I'll never tell your secret."

He gave a lacklustre smile, saying, "Thanks, Carol. I'll never tell yours."

He slipped into the car and started the engine, reversing past her. He caught a glimpse of Carol's baffled expression in the rear-view mirror as he left the church behind him for the last time.

#  

The house on Tom Pierce Drive felt just like that now: a house.

No part of it seemed to recognize him, or he _it_ , save for the master bedroom. He had packed Lily's clothes and her jewellery, her perfumes - oh, her smell \- the throw pillows for the bed, her miniature antiques on the dresser. He packed her CD collection, her books, took down her favorite artwork. He took all of it to the goodwill store while the remainder of the household furniture was hauled away by an auction house. The one memento he kept was a photo of Lily from the year they first met. Her face was bright and unburdened against the city night-lights: there with nothing to run away from, when no end was in sight and everything was promised to be perfect. He wanted to remember her that way.

At the end of the day in fading daylight, Curtis sat on the ground with his back against the bedroom wall where the master bed had been. He smiled to recall the first time they'd slept together: how Lily had been so nervous at sixteen years of age that she vomited beforehand, borrowed his toothbrush, and bought him a replacement brush the following day, tongue-tied with embarrassment.

Love soon emboldened her. She'd changed beneath his hands. They had wasted hours back then, because that was all their youth knew to do: doodling tattoos on one another's skin and arm wrestling. Sometimes he'd even let her think she had won.

Enough. Curtis shook his head to re-enter the present. Leave it alone.

Mallow walked the room, his nose to the ground. The puppy would be at the canine shelter within the hour. There was little sadness affixed to this thought. It was just another fact in a long line of calculations and withdrawals.

Curtis stood, taking the room in one last time. The cops reported that there had been no sign of a break-in. The person who attacked Lily had either found an open window or door to enter through, or it was someone whom Lily had greeted at the door and welcomed inside. He watched as the puppy became excited, sniffing a zigzag trail that led him to the wall beside Curtis. The little white paws began a frantic dig.

"Oi, watch the carpet." Curtis clicked his fingers. "Hey."

Mallow angled his head sideways and stuck his nose in the join between the baseboard and the carpet. He licked furiously for a moment and presently collected something in his mouth. Curtis prised open the puppy's jaws with finger and thumb. A small black bead, no bigger than a lentil, dropped into his open palm. Curtis turned the bead over with a fingertip. Black bead... where have I seen this before? I know this...

Mallow stood wagging his tail, expecting a reward. The blood throughout Curtis's body cooled in a prolonged sweep and drummed back hot in his ears. The memory returned from that day at the airport: the last time he'd seen Lily alive and well.

"So, you're going to hang out with the bead-making freak?"

Chapter 18

As soon as it was light the following morning Curtis booked in at a local tattoo studio. He chose a font halfway between gothic and cursive and he stared at the wall as Lily's name was inscribed on the inner flesh of his left wrist. He had his tender skin wrapped in plastic protection, paid up and left: the sting of the needles having driven him to a new level of angst to exactly where his head needed to be. Lily said that Joel was going back to the hostel to live. But, which one?

He proceeded to visit a string of downtown hostels, none of which had a Joel Shearer on their books. He pretended to be a long lost brother to get past the confidentiality issue. At the last hostel he walked into he saw the African American girl from Lily's church at the counter and knew he'd finally landed his search. The girl looked regretful on sight of him. "Hey, how are you, man? None of us can believe what happened."

Curtis nodded. "Joel here?"

"Yeah, suite-number ten. Why?" Merrin raised her voice as Curtis passed by. "Hey, you can't just barge in there!"

He could hear that Merrin was following him and it bypassed his system. He was beyond protocol, beyond mere worry. He glanced left and right at the suite numbers until he reached number ten. He stopped and busted open the door with a hip-high kick of his leg. Merrin shrieked.

Joel was in boxer shorts on a narrow bed eating an apple. He looked up, registering only mild surprise at the intrusion. Wordlessly, Curtis charged at him, bailing Joel up against the wall by his throat and they held a breathless battle of arms and hands, the apple rolling off the bed.

In the background Merrin yelled, "Stop it! Hey! What are you doing?"

Curtis used all of his fitness-borne muscle to pin the scrawny white throat. Although he was pinned against the wall, Joel still managed to get out, "Think I'm gay now?"

Curtis propelled Joel to the ground and straddled him, landing hard hits on Joel's face. He punched and punched, for the wife he'd never have, and for a future he didn't want. He punched until his knuckles were sliced open against Joel's teeth and their blood had combined in spray on his shirt and skin.

His arms grew heavy. His ears rang from Merrin's continued screams. She gave up tugging at Curtis and bodily shoved him away instead.

Curtis sat there, landed on the floor. He watched as Joel struggled to a sitting position. A crowd had been attracted by the commotion. Someone yelled, "The cops are coming!"

Joel hung his head as he swayed on all fours. Pink saliva dangled in a strip from his chin. Throwing a filthy look at Curtis, Merrin helped Joel as he felt his way up onto the bed. He left handprints behind. Finally, he rested on the edge of the bed, winded, staring at Curtis with his wrecking ball eyes. He grinned with a raw-steak red mouth.

Curtis nursed his left hand, seeing the gashes but not feeling them yet. He wrapped it in the bottom of his shirt like a burrito and headed for the door, when Joel said, "Must've done something right. There was a - lot \- of noise."

Curtis stopped in his tracks. He stared at the people gathered in the doorway, people without faces. Someone was recording it all on a cell-phone. As he turned back, a sea of arms tried to restrain him but Curtis broke free and went at Joel again. He punched Joel with everything he had. He heard a squelch and crack. The force of the punch sent Joel head-over heels off the bed and he struck his head on the corner of the TV cabinet as he landed.

"How could you fucking do it?" Curtis shouted.

Merrin knelt down beside Joel. His legs jittered. His eyes had settled in an open stare on the ceiling and his breath struggled up pinkish foam onto his lips. Merrin checked his pulse. "Oh my God!" she said. "It's stopped!"

A tide of blood was creeping out from under Joel's head. The edge of the TV cabinet was darkly wet. People pushed into the room, calling out and shoving Curtis aside. He hung back, breathing heavily, staring down at his two hands. "I-I just pushed him," he said.

There were thin trails of blood everywhere he looked. Joel's body was strewn like a crash-test dummy. He was getting used to it. The adrenaline, the blur; the sounds: then the distinctly huge... nothingness.

#  

Everything's a placebo, Suzannah thought. How did I ever see life differently?

At Every Witch Way, she took money from customers and handed back the change: yes, we owe you this much, and no more.

She refused to run workshops, incurring her mother's displeasure. Several weeks after the funeral, Ester pulled her aside and said, "The coven wants to hold an invocation. We'll connect you with Lily. I think it's what you need right now."

"No," Suzannah said, flatly. She turned and flipped the wall calendar to a new month. Ester said at her back, "Don't you want to know?"

"Nope. Not this time. Not any more."

Ester glowered at her, a mother at a loss. "It'll be for the good-"

Suzannah raised a finger of warning, gazing steadily at Ester as she passed. "No. And, don't go near this again."

#  

It had begun as a movie when the paramedics couldn't find Lily's pulse and when they covered her face with a sheet. It had remained a movie without Curtis knowing it.

Outside of the building there were numerous squad cars with flashing lights. Hostel employees and residents stood around in wide-eyed clumps and gave witness statements. One police officer had seized the cell-phone used to take the video recording of the assault. Another officer pushed Curtis against the hood of the squad car and patted him down. He was read his rights and booked on a manslaughter charge. They pushed him in his be-spattered shirt and handcuffs into the back of the squad car.

At the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, they took his fingerprints and his mug shot and asked him to hand over any personal effects. Then he found himself guided into a private cubicle where he was asked to strip naked. He had to show that he hid nothing in the cavity of his mouth. He had to face away from the officer, spread his buttocks, squat, and cough to show that he concealed nothing internally. At this point he was given a jail regulation suit and led into a holding cell where a clearly intoxicated man sat slumped at an impressive angle on a narrow bench.

Seconds and minutes drained into what seemed like hours as he stared around the sterile concrete walls. His head was clear of thought, almost breezy. He was either awake or dreaming. No way to be sure.

Eventually, he was ushered into a private interview room. Two cops sat opposite him and rained the questions down. Curtis refused any comment, and asked to have a State attorney appointed him. He'd seen enough movies to know that this was the safest course of action to take. After a time, the cops collected their notes and left him to himself. Seconds became minutes; and minutes quickly seemed to become hours again. At one stage, an obese officer walked into the room and clunked a cup of water down in front of him.

He thought, maybe this is dinner.

His State appointed Defense Attorney finally appeared. She introduced herself as Anjula Chand. The woman had a hooked nose: great legs. At the end of each sentence, her tone rose like a question mark courtesy of an accent sounding straight from India. "Good evening? My name's Anjula? I will be going through some questions with you which might take a while?"

#  

Matt walked away from his piano student to answer the phone. He'd placed an advertisement for piano tuition in several prominent LA newspapers and his schedule had been inundated. As he answered the phone he held it briefly to his chest and asked the student to play pianissimo.

"Sorry about that," Matt said down the line.

"It's Merrin," the voice said, shrilly, "And you need to come here now."

"Where? Merrin, what's wrong?"

"I-I..." A muffled cough: a sharp breath. "I'm at LA County Sheriff's Department. I'm about to be interviewed. I can't do it alone, Matt! Lily's fiancé, he... there was a fight. Oh, I can't say it over the phone. Please just come."

Despite his bewilderment, Matt kept his voice calm. "I'll be right there," he assured and hung up. The grade one student received an abrupt end to his lesson and once the boy had left, Matt rushed to his car, pushing the speed limit all the way.

#  

Suzannah relaxed against Brendan as they watched TV in her bedroom. He had a non-alcoholic beer in-hand. Suzannah was secretly proud of him, yet never telling him so in case the words had the reverse effect and made him rethink his ability to cope. She'd taken to occasionally dropping into his work place for visits, timing the visits for whenever Brendan had staff breaks. She often asked to take a sip of his drink. She figured that if Brendan were to act cagey about handing over the drink, she could safely assume that it was alcoholic. So far, he had never refused her a sample.

Suzannah pulled her partner's hand onto her five-month stomach when the baby swam.

"I'm thinking she'll have your nose and my eyes," Brendan predicted. He took a swig of his drink and burped.

Suzannah faked a pout. "Why your eyes? Mine are way cooler."

"Every time we do this you get everything!"

"Course she'll get something from you." Suzannah cupped a hand to her ear, an impish smile playing across her face. "Wait... did I just hear her burp?"

"Hey!" Brendan said. Suzannah laughed, aiming the remote at the TV to channel surf. The movie that showed had a storyline revolving around witchcraft. The male love interest in the story had been placed under a Hollywood version of a spell. As he acted the part, hopelessly obsessed with the lead girl, Brendan said, "I felt a lot like that when we started dating."

Suzannah laid her head on her boyfriend's shoulder, feeling guilt. It was an enchantment to attract you, not a spell. But still...

"And like that, too!" Brendan pointed out the dream sequence of the male lead. "You were in every single one of my dreams; I couldn't get you out of my head. Did you ever cast a spell on me?"

"I have never cast a love spell in my life," Suzannah said, truthfully. "And, anyway, who needs a spell? One look at my can and you were hooked."

Unsmilingly, Brendan asked, "So, you never did something similar to a spell, then?"

"It's called love, Brendan."

"It was too early-days to be love," he dismissed. "There was no logical reason why I suddenly wondered what you'd think of what I was eating or wearing or what freaking shampoo I used - I did! I even wondered if you'd like the smell of the shampoo! You did perform a spell, or something like it, anyway. You weren't just going to let me leave the store that day. Suzannah Fry leaving fate to the wind? No way."

"Alright!" She averted her face. "So, I did an enchantment. I'm insecure about love, about trust... I never learnt the 'usual' way of doing things. My parents weren't exactly the best role models."

Brendan shook his head. "Well, I'm sorry that your parents screwed up your idea of relationships. But this is my life, too, and I'm not some damn robot for you to pre-program."

Silence reigned when Suzannah did not answer back. Brendan moved off the bed and headed for the door when she said, "Bren, wait."

He yanked open the door and entered the hallway. Suzannah cried, "Brendan, don't leave!"

# B

He doubled back at the hysteria in her tone. Even as he neared her, Suzannah had both arms cradling her stomach and her face had twisted into unrecognizable lines. "Don't leave me!"

"Hey, Suz... c'mon," he said, stunned. Two tears the size of diamonds spilled down her face and she rocked herself, shaking her head. The pity that coursed through him, he didn't understand it exactly, the way it filled his entire body.

He pressed Suzannah to his chest, saying, "Shh," repeatedly in her ear until she became calmer. Her breath came out in hiccups: strange, confused sounds like each hurt that emerged was trying to return to her. Snot ran from her nose. Brendan took the edge of his t-shirt and tenderly wiped it away.

Suzannah tried talking. "I j-... I j-ust... wanted you!"

"Okay." Brendan bent to stare into her face, and his next words were a gift to her. "Guess what? That's pretty normal."

#  

For his One Phone Call Curtis appointed Suzannah Fry. His life was suddenly an island and he mentally recognised every person who couldn't or wouldn't row out to keep him from being lost at sea. What he needed from them had been reduced, simply, to speech: the Carson's, one overstressed and the other senile, his parents, possessed with an appalling lack of urgency unless it somehow involved gain; his workmates now conceivably set against him since the morning-after debacle with Nikki; Luke and Hailey busy raising their new son...

Nobody would help, nobody except Suzannah with the possibility that she would do it for Lily's sake, through some sense of diverted love. Just maybe. She'd said 'leave it to me' with finding Lily's puppy a new home. She reported that she had failed to do so and had been unafraid to report that failure. Curtis knew that if nothing could be done for him Suzannah would be the one to say it. He needed the brutal honesty.

Suzannah picked up the call after the second ring, sounding unthrilled. "Yeah, hello?"

"Suz," he greeted, "It's Curtis. You have to listen to me, okay? I'm in jail right now. Yeah. In jail. I found out who messed with Lil." He dropped his voice. "I worked him over pretty good, but I didn't mean to, y'know... clean his clock."

"What? Woah, woah, wait a second."

"I haven't got a second, okay? It was an accident! The chick from Lily's church witnessed it and some guy taped it on his phone! I thought I could make bail. It's only ten grand. But I got denied because of the video evidence. You have to help me. I know that you and me never, you know, jelled... but, I only get this one call."

"What the hell can I do?"

"I don't know, use magic? You can make things happen, right? Lil always said you could."

"And, what, make you innocent? Have you flipped your lid? What were you thinking, Curtis? My God!"

"Like you wouldn't have done the same thing given half the chance," he hissed.

Suzannah said, "Who was it?"

"-And made the guy pay through some kind of craft, don't kid me that you wouldn't."

"Curtis, who was it?"

Curtis brushed his forehead with a damp hand, seeing Anjula waiting in the background.

"It was Joel Shearer, alright?"

"Oh, no. No, no, no," Suzannah uttered. "Him? How did you find out?"

"I just did, I can't explain it right now. Look, is there anything...?"

Help. Me. He felt his jaw muscles jump like pistons as he awaited reply.

Suzannah's voice was strained. "I want you spared. I do. But I'd never use the Craft to influence agents of the State."

"Look, my attorney talked about post-traumatic stress disorder after Lily's death, and considering my lack of any other criminal history, the worst I'll get is an Involuntary Manslaughter charge-"

"-Curtis, the Craft doesn't work for you if you don't believe in it."

"Oh, Christ, don't go all preachy on me now. I'd do a fucking Voodoo dance if I knew how! Who knows how long it'll be before I get charged. Some people have been waiting here without conviction for up to three years."

Anjula caught Curtis's eye, pointing to her watch for time's up. She had been as generous with him as she could be, but she had a schedule to keep. For Curtis, it was life or death. He had no adequate currency, no status or power in this place: nothing of his own choosing. He faced away, walking as far as the black telephone cord would allow. He forced a whisper when Anjula drew near. "Lookit, the least you can do is call my brother. He'll get my father to pull strings, okay? Take this number down."

#  

Two days following Joel's death, Matt and Merrin were ushered into the LA county morgue by a coroner. Young, fresh, and overtly tall, it seemed that James Vaney's height had given him an added ability to rise above the human eventuality. He led Matt and Merrin toward a wall filled with stainless steel doors, each one the dimension of a conventional oven door. Each one had an identification number below the handle. James keyed open a door in the centre of the maze and trawled out a human-length lump beneath a sheet.

Matt crossed looks with Merrin, checking her level of readiness. The coroner smiled candidly and said, "Again, all we need is the verbal verification for the paperwork and you're free to go. Just be warned. It's not a pretty sight."

The sheet was peeled back to reveal a head: a grey waxy face covered in abrasions and bruising. Merrin cried out, turning to hide in Matt's shoulder. He held her close and nodded fleetingly at the coroner. "That's him. That's Joel Shearer."

The coroner replaced the sheet and trundled Joel back into his hidey-hole, saying, "No-one we've contacted in connection with Mr Shearer has come forward to claim the body, so he'll be released to the State for his interment."

#  

Curtis found himself in deadly day care at LA County Sheriff's Department Men's Central Jail. He was classified General Population and in this module he belonged to no subculture. He was not one of the Mexican Nostra Familia: not affiliated with any gang or with the blue-collar fraudsters, and he was no Nazi Low Rider, either.

His biggest deficit was his pretty face. They openly derided him, disposing of him verbally. It was only a matter of time until someone, or some group, tried to take him down. He needed a group to belong to or he knew he would never survive. For weaponry he had his mouth, his muscles, and the way he carried himself: straight backed, head held high, and showing no fear.

Every morning at eight am the inmates had to have their cells inspection ready and twice a day he had to show his face for head count when the Unit Commander yelled 'Count!' Inmates were often rumbled from their cells for random contraband searches.

He had to check his call sheet every morning on the communal cell board to see if he had work assignment or medical checks. His feet took him to different places: to the chow hall for three spare meals a day and to the exercise yard to shoot hoops or work a few dozen reps on the gym equipment. Showering had naked bodies everywhere, no choice not to see them. There was a recreation room with ping-pong tables and board games set up at various stations, but no games involving dice as gambling was forbidden.

One hour per week was allotted to inmates for visitation rights. Curtis received no visitors and had still received no word from Rory in the week since the phone call to Suzannah. Instead, he used the Attorney Room to consult with Anjula Chand. She reported that she had sent the Dodge Coupe into storage, as per Curtis's request, cancelled his month-to-month lease at Seresin Court, and dealt with his employment termination from Fitness Finesse. Anjula also acknowledged that Curtis's case was caught in the backlog of the Californian justice system, and that he could conceivably be held without conviction -indefinitely.

At night, the sounds were amplified and inescapable: the grating of cell doors and the ominous inmate calls. Jingle of keys: the static blip of walkie-talkies. Regulation blankets scratched his skin. The mattress smelled of angst. Lights in the corridors cast everything in a sickly, perpetual daytime with the cell falling into occasional shadow as officers peered into his cell. Checking for what, the possibility that I snuck a plastic spoon from chow hall to dig my way out? He thought.

Most nights he pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, making stars spark there. It was his only astral plane, yet he still saw no sign of Lily. Even now, the galaxy won't do me this one, solid favor.

He would bite against the breath that hissed out, making his throat catch, and the tears streamed in hot, silken rivers into his ears.

Chapter 19

Matt sat hunched over the keys of a restaurant piano, his face kept partially hidden behind the score stand. The white-cloth tables ran thirty deep with occasional spheres of light pooled on the polished wooden floor. Matt asked the keys for compliance, for a makeshift peace, and he gained it as long as he sat there.

He was almost entirely lost in the song when Penny Bowden pushed through the restaurant doors. Matt struck a discordant note. A manicured blonde glanced his way with a sour twist of her lips. Matt lowered his head and he played out the song, reaching the end of his first set. Amidst scattered applause he moved to the bar and ordered a gin and lime. Before long a female form materialised beside him. Without turning his head, Matt heard the historical voice asking for an apple martini. The forest green top that Penny wore sparkled with silver sequins and it took a mild plunge toward her bust. Her hair was coiffed in gentle waves that hovered around her tinder brown eyes.

Matt finally acknowledged her presence with a smile hello. Penny napkin-ed the bottom of her glass and took a seat beside him, saying, "I'd forgotten how good you are on keys."

Matt's eyes toured the bottles of alcohol behind the bar that enticed in forget-the-world-for-now rows of color.

"Where's Caleb?" he asked.

"I have a sitter. She's young, but reliable."

Matt indicated the length of Penny's body with a finger held away from his glass. "You going somewhere?"

She stared at him. "Yeah. I'm here."

After a beat, she said, "I called at your place first. Scotty told me you'd be here."

Matt stared into the depths of his glass. He could feel Penny's eyes combing the side of his face.

"What has the church allowed you to keep doing?" she asked.

"Not much," he said. "I'm allowed to continue with prison ministry but only in a voluntary capacity."

"Do you..." Penny paused. "Matt, do you feel God has deserted you?"

Matt pretended a smile and downed the remainder of his drink. "I try not to think of it that way."

"Scott said that you love someone. That you lost her recently." Penny pressed fingers to her chest in a tarantula-like crouch. "I'm sorry for that, I truly am. Still, I think that we might have a chance. There's just so much left unresolved in our past. It wasn't all pain."

Matt swivelled on the bar stool, taking Penny by surprise as he looked her full in the face. "That's why you came here dressed like that? To tempt me back?"

Penny blushed. One hand crept self-consciously up her throat. "I don't... what, because I wore a nice top? I'm sorry if you thought that-"

"I know people, Penny," Matt said, bluntly. "I know that you need help with Caleb and that you're sick to death of being single. I know this stuff."

Penny blinked at him, tears welling up, with a femininity that was infinite. "While God's loyalty may be a question mark to you, Matt, we are on the same side," she said. "At least I thought so."

Penny cowled her hair to one side, shaking her head. "Is this how you are when you drink?"

Matt lifted his glass and stared at the watermark it left. He absently stamped further rings down the bar. "I hardly ever drink," he said. "Hardly ever needed to before."

Penny's eyes toured the restaurant floor. "I ruined everything the first time, okay? D'you really think I'm going to let you slip through my fingers again? First time around I was spoilt. I thought there would be a thousand men like you out there."

She touched a fingertip to the back of Matt's hand. She was hot: he was cold. "I realized there's only one."

Then, sliding a ten-dollar bill beneath her drink as she prepared to go, Penny said, "I'm not above playing second fiddle, either, if you loved this woman more than you loved me. I'd settle for that." She smiled wistfully. "I'd settle for anything from you."

#  

Suzannah pressed handprints of paint onto the stomach of her maternity overalls and enjoyed her makeshift artistry. Brendan was on a stepladder painting the color Lavender Breeze on Suzannah's bedroom walls.

"Paint fumes aren't good for the baby," Brendan said, his eyes following the paintbrush stroke downward.

"Don't change the subject," she said, and picked up the roller brush to begin lathering a section of the wall nearest her. Lavender splotches hit the ground sheet. "So?" she prompted.

Brendan re-dipped the paintbrush. "I don't think we should move until after the baby comes. That's my opinion."

"All your family is in Bakersfield!" she said. "You know there's that top restaurant crying out for new talent. It's had rave reviews in every paper!"

"But, I haven't," Brendan said, categorically. "After Arizona, I'm having to prove myself just to keep this job. And you seem to be forgetting that we both have a life here, too."

"I have... what? My mother? The shop?"

"Well, that's something, isn't it?"

"It's something. It's not everything. A new place would mean no more history and..." she added, "No places that hold memories."

Brendan descended the ladder. "You told me once that I should never let you move around the country with the baby the way your parents did with you. The baby isn't even here yet and you've started scheming!"

Suzannah stood with hands on hips, leaning back against the weight of their child. "This is not the same situation as my childhood," she argued. "We need our own place instead of you always sleeping here. Baby, we could make new friends! Your crowd's thinned out since you don't drink with them anymore, and I'm sorry to say it but the only friends that I have left here are pretty replaceable."

Brendan clipped the lid on the paint bucket, shaking his head. "You're quitting."

"What are you talking about?"

Brendan straightened up. "When your Mom calls now she sounds like she's asking to speak with someone from the tax department! What happened to you? Some deep shit went down, I know." He tossed the brush onto the drop-sheet. "But, it's like you've given up on every single thing that used to make you tick."

Suzannah pulled color swatches from her pocket for something to focus on. She spun the color wheel. "I believe all the same stuff, it's just in the background for now. Call it 'reservations'. Anyway, whatever! I don't have to explain a thing to you or to my mother if I don't want to."

"And, what about your child?" Brendan asked, taking Suzannah by surprise. "What'll that teach her? That when life goes to the pack you just run away?"

Suzannah blinked at him, finding herself without an answer. She drew a breath and looked away. Tears sparked in her eyes. When she eventually replied, her voice was so soft that it almost wasn't there. "The baby will know me," she said, turning to leave. "She'll know me."

In due course, Brendan left for work. Suzannah showered and stood wrapped in a towel, trying to find a t-shirt that fitted over her baby belly. Eyeing Brendan's overnight bag, she got ungracefully to the floor and began to sift through his clothing. As she sourced a baggy t-shirt, a hard object scraped the back of her hand. Digging down, she unearthed a litter of items that Brendan had collected from the motel in Arizona. Puzzled, she emptied out the complimentary salt and pepper sachets, a blindfold, soaps - and, lastly, the Gideon Bible.

Why keep these mementoes? She thought. The trip wasn't exactly a resounding success.

She began to stow the items in a low dresser drawer when a sharp pain cut through her midriff. She emitted a cry and held onto the drawer's edge. Staring down on herself, Suzannah saw a sudden trail of blood trickling down the inside of her thigh. She watched it lengthen, panting now, and she started to fret, trying to pull herself upright on the strength of the drawer. She fell back down into a hunch.

"Oh, shit," she said, her thigh being covered by a renewed stream that travelled down to her kneecap. She forced a few breaths through pursed lips, feeling a light sweat break on her forehead.

"Don't come out, don't come out," she said, eyes closed. "Stay! Stay in me."

Another burst of blood wet her skin and spotted the carpet in a bulls-eye. Lightening in her head, brazenly awake, Suzannah rummaged blindly for the Bible in the drawer and landed it on the floor beside her face. She rustled it open. Another pain tore through her abdomen. In panic, she made the sign of the cross on her chest and read aloud, " 'I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.' "

Tears trickled as Suzannah said, "Lily's God, please save my baby... please."

The moment settled around her as she waited, all her strength and her vulnerability tied up in the nameless orb within her body. Her panting gradually lessened. She used her hands on her thighs to weigh herself upright, checking for new blood. There was none: only what was drying like crimson roots on her skin. Then, a small flutter occurred in her belly, something she'd become accustomed to; something akin to the pulse of butterfly's wings trapped between two hands.

"Oh, thank you," she breathed. "Thank you."

Whoever. Wherever. Thank you. Suzannah covered her face and wept in relief.

#  

At seven am a loud rapping sounded on Curtis's cell door. A female officer crooked a finger at him through the Perspex. "You got a collect-call, Sloane."

Curtis rose with a passionless nod. The officer had heavy baggage under her eyes and she swaggered like a man as she escorted Curtis along the narrow gangway and downstairs to the dining hall where a row of fingerprint-grimed phone booths lined the far wall. The officer retired to the monitor station. The receiver was lying face down on top of the booth. Curtis didn't feel dread or anticipation. As he answered the call, he simply picked sleep from his eyes and said, " 'Lo?"

"Hey, big brother," a male voice said.

At that, pinpricks of hope started a map inside Curtis's chest. "Rory?" he bolted out. "Oh, man, Suzannah rang you?"

"She gave me the bare bones of the situation," Rory said. "Bro listen, this is... it's not looking good."

"I know. That's why I got her to call you! You hit up Gary?"

"Yeah."

Curtis grinned, clenching the booth in a one-armed hug. "What'd it take to hook him? How many zeros make him a hero?"

"That's the thing. He, uh... he didn't bite."

Curtis felt his smile lower by degrees. "What do you mean 'he didn't bite'?"

"With what you have left from the house sale and settling debts I figured you had fifty grand leeway - one hundred if the bank is kind. He says he doesn't have the same connections anymore."

"This is bullshit," Curtis said, tightly. "It's bullshit!"

"He didn't want the money. He has money."

"Since when did he ever have enough of it? Offer more! I can clear at least-"

"It's too late to make Dad care, Curtis, alright? That's the bottom line."

The telephone wire buzzed with an outsized silence. Curtis blinked at the wall before him and he felt the absence of his legs: a sudden amputation. "Had to try, though, right?" he said, and he set the phone back on the hook.

#  

That Monday evening in early September Matt drove to Woodlawn cemetery. He sat in the parking lot for some time, glimpsing the grass that housed and entombed Lily's body beyond his view. Weeks since his ministry step-down, Matt's head still reminded him that Monday evenings were once reserved for study group. Once.

Still, the church hadn't entirely forgotten him. There were cups of coffee in downtown cafes with congregants and the odd phone call for prayer support or an occasional dinner invitation. Yet it was no axis for his world to turn upon.

At length he arrested the bouquet of irises from the passenger seat and set out for the gravesite some two hundred meters away. As he passed endless names and doom dates on slabs, his stride, at last, checked. A short, heavily pregnant woman was standing at the very headstone he intended to visit. Suzannah Fry.

Matt advanced with caution, hearing the witch's smoky voice in quiet monologue as she stood before Lily's granite marker, her black hair trailing outside the hood of her jacket and the wind making it pulse with an ocean-current type sway around her face. Matt put his weight into one leg and leaned out to catch Suzannah's eye, raising an unobtrusive hand in greeting.

Suzannah startled. "Oh," she said in recognition, and her eyes automatically narrowed.

"I just wanted to..." Matt hoisted the bouquet as the reason for his visit and he bent to lay it against Lily's name. There were a dozen other bouquets there already, vying for space. Lily's headstone was four-feet high, the tallest in its row: the tragic version of a bed-head.

The Wiccan and the ex-minister stood together in silence for some time. Lily was a dimpled, seraphic teenager in the headstone photograph, soft with puppy fat and fitted with outdated clothing. Grace Carson had selected the photograph. Someone at the funeral joked that Lily would come back from the dead to berate her mother for displaying the kind of photograph that most women would want relegated to a dusty drawer.

"To you, she's in the ground," Suzannah said, waking Matt to the moment. "To me, she's become another energy around us, just one that we don't recognize in the same form."

Matt delivered a nod. His brow was lined in thought. "She's still just absolutely... gone, though, isn't she?" he said.

At this, Suzannah rushed a hand over her eyes and she kept it there. Her chin wrinkled as she withheld a powerful emotion. Matt said nothing, unsure of his place.

Suzannah wiped off her eyes, angrily. "Other people, though? They don't deserve the chance to come back. I can see why Christians invented Hell."

Not following the train of thought, Matt said, " 'Other people'?"

"Joel!" she said. "What, you didn't hear the news?"

"I know that Curtis had a fight with Joel about something and it ended badly."

"Joel was the one who did it."

Matt felt his mouth dry out. The air grew suddenly cold. His voice said, "He was...?"

"He was the one," Suzannah said, staring off. "We knew him. We interacted with him, and all-l-l that time..."

Matt nodded. And, he couldn't seem to stop nodding. From Suzannah, to the gravestone, and back: like one of those bobble-headed dogs placed on the dash of a car.

"Okay," he said, backing a step. "I think I need to make a phone call. About this."

With a dismissive wave, Suzannah faced the headstone as though Matt hadn't been there at all.

As Matt trekked back to the parking lot, he took out his cell-phone and dialled Merrin Franklin's number. "Hi, it's me," he said, as soon as the call was answered. "Look, we need to talk about the whole Curtis situation."

He watched his feet crushing grass. "It wasn't just some falling out that he and Joel had. He either believed or knew Joel to be Lily's attacker. Yeah... I know. So, we definitely need to discuss how you're going to testify whenever Curtis goes to sentencing, in light of this."

#  

They'll be here any minute. Curtis slipped half-heartedly into the glass-fronted booth. Phones were set into the partition walls on either side of the Perspex. It was his choice to conduct a visit either by phone or in the visiting room. Phones and glass suit me best. I know what to do with barriers, he had decided. His parents presently sidled into the room accompanied by an officer. Helen took the chair in front of the glass, brimming with tears and attempting a smile. Gary took in his immediate space with tourist type interest. He looked out-of-place with his shampoo-soft hair and his designer wear.

Curtis and his mother reached simultaneously for the receivers.

"Oh, sweetheart," she breathed. Her left hand touched the glass and retracted, quick-fire, like it was too hot to touch.

Curtis gave a lopsided smile. "You haven't called me sweetheart in years."

"You're so pale! Are you getting enough to eat? Are you sleeping?"

"I'm fine. It's all good here."

Father and son met gaze through the glass. Gary touched his wife on the shoulder and stooped to whisper in her ear.

"Oh, yes," Helen brightened. "I wanted to show you the latest photo of little Bernice from your cousin, but they wouldn't let me bring in my handbag. Anyhow, her first tooth came in - last week wasn't it, Gary? Mm."

Curtis balled and flexed his free hand, making the knuckles pop. "Good," he said, blandly. "Well, at the rate things are going, I won't be out 'til Bernice is onto her second marriage."

"Now, don't... don't be like that," Helen said, uneasily.

"Like what?"

"The wheels of Californian justice turn very slowly."

"Oh, we're talking about justice? I was thinking of a different word."

Helen shook her head, out of her depth. She passed the receiver to Gary.

Curtis eyeballed his father. "Out of practice with bribery, Pops?'

After a pre-cursory glance around Gary poked a finger downward, keeping his voice low. "I don't know what you're talking about. And, don't call me 'Pops' you cocky little son-of-a-bitch. You got yourself into this mess."

"She was irreplaceable!" Curtis yelled suddenly and he smashed the receiver against the Perspex with all his might. "You ever love anything that much?"

Helen rotated a bewildered glance between her husband and son. She touched Gary's forearm but he jerked his arm away with a leftover of the glare he had originally fixed on his son. A correctional officer hauled Curtis to his feet as he yelled, "Fuck you!"

Another officer was speedily buzzed in. Together, the two men strong-armed Curtis to the wall, slamming his chest up against it. They wrestled him into a pair of handcuffs. Helen spoke tearfully from the background, her voice carrying through the ventilation holes with shrill force. "We'll find a way to fix this!"

Gary called out so that Curtis could hear every word in crystal clear definition as he was escorted away. "You think I'm the family failure? Huh? Look at yourself!"

Curtis kept his head down, chin on chest. He saw purple spots in his vision and the door clanged shut behind him. Forever, he promised himself.

#  

Matt stood at the jail's security station with his arms held in the air like a signpost for different counties while his body was scanned. The correctional officer nodded and buzzed him into the module. Matt walked down the corridor, unaccompanied by his usual ministry compatriots. He called in at the Religious Volunteer Services office where he stated his credentials and asked to speak with Curtis Sloane.

"I don't know who it is," the officer reported at Curtis's cell door. "Some guy who didn't want to give out his name. C'mon. On your feet."

Curtis was handcuffed and taken throughout the module to the elevators. Ascending three levels, he was guided down another interminable corridor. Curtis kept a sharp eye on his surroundings, seeing shadows ready to pounce, bound to timeless lines by his feet. His diet was playing havoc with his physique. He was sluggish and harboring fat, despite the workouts he performed several times a day in his three-by-ten cell and in the exercise yard. The officer shuttled him into the cedar-walled chapel. Curtis's gaze fell on a familiar figure seated on a distant pew. He shook his head, coming to a halt despite the officer's strong steering arm. "You got to be kidding me," he said.

"No," Matt replied.

Chapter 20

Curtis shut down inwardly on the walk toward Matt when he suddenly felt something strange beside him for the first time in his existence: some wraith to his right, disturbing the hairs on the back of his hand, a presence thick like syrup trickled from a spoon. It was a presence so tangible, so incredibly familiar that he glanced quickly to his right as he stood being uncuffed, but he saw only the cedar chapel wall.

No. He didn't believe in the supernatural. It's just your mind playing tricks.

Matt asked the officer to give them some privacy. He seemed to hold Curtis in full confidence.

What's that light in his eyes? Curtis wondered. Evangelism? Prophecy? Gloating?

He begrudgingly shared the pew with Matt, settling several feet away from him as the officer retired to the doorway. There were oversized linen banners strung along three walls of the chapel with the words Love, Hope and Charity declared for all to see.

Matt looked out from under tired eyelids. After a time, he said, "It's your call whether I stay or I go. I just thought it was high time-"

Low on patience, void of camaraderie, Curtis interrupted. "So, what d'you want?"

Matt passed the question back to him. "What do you want?"

"Nothing a few cold beers and cable TV couldn't fix," Curtis said, dryly. Within, he felt the bitterness and the blood cells collide like an amateur painting that would never see daylight. He rubbed the marks on his wrists where the cuffs had been. "Look, man, I don't like you and you don't like me. Let's keep this short."

"I won't lie. I was jealous of you," Matt said. "I liked Lily. A lot."

Curtis felt solidification in his intestines. All the way from his colon to his throat, he had become a statue. "You ever make a move on her?"

"No," Matt said. "But, in my weaker moments, I came close to acting on it."

"Guess you're in the right place to make that kind of admission, then," Curtis said, quietly. "While I'm under lock and key, being watched by a corrections officer."

"You would have wondered about my role in Lily's life," Matt said. "Any guy would have done. But, you also knew what I knew."

"Yeah? And what's that?"

"She was yours. No matter what."

Curtis simply sat, crossed his ankles, and sent his eyes roaming. Jesus was dying on a wooden cross on the wall behind the pulpit. Good. He can stay there.

"It wasn't just Joel that killed her," he said. "It was Christianity."

"Do you believe that? Or, do you want to believe that?" Matt asked, and nodded seriously. "Legitimate question. I'm not trying to provoke you. Did you... want to talk about it?"

"No," Curtis said, then as a mocking aside, "Did you?"

Matt rested an arm on the top of the pew. He drummed his fingers there. "I ran into Suzannah yesterday."

"Yeah? Did she give you the evil eye?"

"She's, uh... she's got it down to a fine art."

The two men shared a grin. Curtis's smile fell quickly: suspiciously.

"I gave it real thought," Matt said. "How I could leave God out of the equation and talk to you in terms of philosophy, the way Lily tried to do."

Curtis spread his hands, pretending nonchalance. "Hey, I've got no other pressing engagements."

After a second, Matt said, "So, I want to say from the outset that I don't personally want to approve or disapprove of your last dealings with Joel. I'll talk about motives alone. In the world of philosophy, motive is considered a 'moral act'. I believe that what you did could be morally justified through a desire for the vindication of another."

Curtis stared dead ahead like he was at a drive-in movie instead of sitting inside a chapel with burning ears.

"I see your drive to punish Joel as being no greater than your desire to have Lily alive and well. And, whether you regret your actions or not, I believe that your initial motive is what counts. Whether the courts reach a similar conclusion someday is - in the wind. I just wanted you to know that someone else can... understand."

Curtis found his gaze reverting to the banner Hope.

He thought you might understand loss as a concept, but this particular loss? No, Mr Sermon, I'm the only one who understands the size of it. It's a world first. It would even be considered a new precedent except that no one like Lily ever has or ever will happen to this planet again. So her existence and her extinction belong - solely - to my lifetime.

Curtis got to his feet and, looking to the guard, he jerked his head for come.

"Good talk," he said to Matt. "But I've got to head back. Don't want to miss my favorite show."

#  

Suzannah pushed through the door of Every Witch Way and headed behind the counter to where her mother stood bubble-wrapping items for a customer. She nodded at Ester in greeting and shed her satchel to the floor. When the customer left, Ester began arranging a new roll of cello-tape onto the tape snail and said, "You're late."

"I'm early considering how pregnant I am," Suzannah retorted, already irritable for knowing what was in store once she enlightened her mother about the decision she and Brendan had reached.

Ester fussed a hand against Suzannah's stomach as she passed by. "How's my baby cooking?"

"She's cooking over my bladder. The peeing never ends."

"Wait for the constipation, that's the best part," Ester laughed.

Suzannah pulled out a stack of invoice sheets and waved the topmost one at her mother. "Didn't Sans Voice already order the limited edition Athamés?"

"Yeah, and they've already sold out. I told you how word-of-mouth pays off."

"Mm." Suzannah licked her thumb and rifled through the sheets, muttering, "Mother knows best."

"Well, you'll know what that means someday soon. And, that baby will be the smartest, cutest baby this side of the Hollywood Hills."

Suzannah set the papers flat and listened to a wind-chime stir in the breeze from the open door. "About that," she said, warily. "About being this side of the Hills. Brendan and I have recently talked about shifting-"

Ester switched in her daughter's direction, her radar almost audibly presenting itself. "You decided what? Oh, don't tell me. You'd better not be leaving. Nuh-uh."

"Don't worry. The apron strings can stretch as far as Bakersfield," Suzannah said, attempting humor. Ester crossed to her side in a flurry of skirts and jewellery and she stunned Suzannah by seizing hold of her face with a surprisingly un-kind grip.

Suzannah's eyes watered. She tried to pull away. "Ma, you're hurting me."

Ester released her daughter's face with a huff of breath. Her eyes travelled vividly about the shop space, poking at objects. Suzannah looked on in bewilderment at her mother's instant passion. "Ma, Bakersfield is not that far!"

"It's-" Ester began, and she turned toe. "I can be a grandmother in any location, Suzannah. It's that you're quitting all of this!" she threw up her hands to indicate the shop, heading through the bead curtain into the bowels of the store. Suzannah went after her mother as fast as she could, detouring to the shop door to keep a customer from entering.

"Sorry," she said, blocking the woman with her body and simultaneously turning the Open/Closed sign on the door. "Come back in ten minutes, okay?"

The woman fell back in confusion. "Oh! Well I was just coming to collect-"

"Ten minutes." Suzannah clapped the door shut and made for the workshop area, yelling, "Don't walk away from me like that!"

Ester returned through the beads, standing with hands on hips. It had smatterings of guns at high noon as Suzannah came to a faltering stop. They stared at one another.

Ester was first to draw fire. "All of my life, all I ever wanted for my daughter was this faith."

"Give me a chance to speak!" Suzannah exclaimed. "It has only 'ended' in your head. This shop represents my beliefs but I contain them."

"You gave up taking workshops after your friend died. That's when I knew it had ended."

"At least give her a name," Suzannah shot back. "Show her some respect."

Ester went on like she hadn't heard. "And you sold out because life didn't suit your needs. Well, I didn't raise some fair-weather girl."

"Fair-weather woman. I'm a woman, mother, and it's all as intact as it ever was. It's just a little further down the list of my priorities right now, alright?"

"You are ever the Wiccan you were?"

Eye-to-eye with this smouldering hawk, Suzannah said, "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes!"

Ester scratched at her temples, smiling. "You think you can lie to the person who gave birth to you? That is surprisingly dim."

Suzannah's heart began to pound then, in earnest, as Ester vanished behind the bead curtain. She called out at the top of her lungs. "If you arrange anything magical against me it won't work! I know how it goes and I know how you think."

There was a silence the size of a shrinking room. She yelled again. "Ma!"

Gaining no response, she went for her satchel. She dug out her cell-phone and dialled Brendan's cell-phone, making no time for pleasantries.

"Bren!" she said swiftly, at pick-up. "I know we've decided on Bakersfield, but we need to step it up. Get on the Internet and find the cheapest option for a rental. No, I'll explain later. If it's already happening, Ma can't change my mind for me."

#  

Matt felt in need of release. His best version of this was to surround himself with the people he cared about most in life. Over the phone he invited a number of Young Adults previously under his care for a backyard barbecue. That evening, he listened as one of the girls from cell group recited a poem she'd written while other young adults turned hamburger patties on the charcoal grill. Others set up volleyball. It was almost exactly the way it had been before.

The girl was rehearsing the third stanza. "How golden falls the sun, like haloes on the sons of men..."

When Penny Bowden roamed up the driveway, unannounced, Matt had been praising the girl's effort. On sight of Penny, the praise trailed to nothing in his throat. The barbecue attendants became similarly silent, evaluating the stranger. Matt smiled broadly to dispel any misgivings.

"Pen!" he said. "Hey, you guys, this is Penny Bowden. We go back a long way. Can somebody grab an extra chair?"

The youths who assembled burgers talked privately amongst themselves. Matt knew it was inevitable that a lot of the talk would involve questions around his association with Penny. He did his best to keep conversation light-hearted. He kept a watchful eye on Penny as she sat in one of the sun-chairs and ate her burger with genteel bites and nodded attentively to the girl reciting her poem for a new captive audience.

When the evening drew to a twilight end, Penny helped to prop collapsed chairs against the side of the house and to scrub down the barbecue. One by one, people said their goodbyes until only the two of them remained. They stood at a mute distance from one another on the lawn, staring about at the hydrangea bushes, the distant basketball hoop rusted by the years; the compost heap.

"Hope you didn't feel too out of place," Matt said, in time.

Penny's legs jittered, making the fabric of her beige culottes ripple. "The girl with the poem was sweet. She reminded me of myself at the same age. So idealistic." She smiled. "They're all lovely kids, don't get me wrong. I just wonder how much of the real world that they actually... know for themselves."

"Some people never have to find out."

"Mm. I don't know if that's a healthy thing or not."

Matt headed for the house. "Caleb doing okay?"

"He's fine. I just wondered if bringing him over too often is like salt in the wound for you."

Moths circled the sensor lights. Passing indoors together, Matt clicked the door shut behind them. "He could never be salt in a wound to me, never think that," he said, meaningly. "Did you want a coffee or anything?"

"Matt, I love you," Penny uttered.

The words stopped Matt where he stood. He had turned for the kitchen and he kept his back to Penny for a moment. When he eventually turned he saw that Penny's face was newly shining with tears, yet he didn't approach her. He couldn't think of words that would dry tears. He had invented a new soul for himself in Penny's years of absence. She didn't recognize it: wanted the old soul back.

"Penny..." he began.

"It's too late!" she said. "I can't do anything about it! I couldn't have said it more plainly that night at the cafe."

"And, I do. I have a huge amount of respect for you."

"Respect I can get anywhere," she shot back.

Matt pressed one palm to the wall and supported his frame against a straight arm, eyes downcast. "Pen-"

"I'll be whatever you want me to be! I'll help you fight the church for your position."

A strangled noise sounded in Penny's throat. "I'll disappear into you."

"Don't," he said, shaking his head. "Not this."

"So, you've cut off the idea of loving someone? It's all self-pity, Matt."

"Don't," he said again, but with sudden sharpness. "Don't diagnose me. I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd come to see the world this way. I'm sorry I haven't adjusted to my losses in a way you can understand. I've been nothing but a gentleman to you and to Caleb, and I do it out of love."

"No, Matt. It's out of guilt."

The words hit him like a physical slap, heightening his defences. "You said, 'I'd say I'm sorry, but what good would it do?' You want to know what good it would do?"

"What? When did I say that?"

"That day at the café when I first met Caleb! What good would it do? How about 'the pregnancy wasn't just your doing, Matt'? How about 'thank you for reading out the wedding vows you drafted that last night we were together'? Or 'I'm sorry that nothing was how you planned it'?"

Penny dried off her cheeks with the back of her hand. "What else can I say?"

"Tell me that you would have come looking for me if Caleb hadn't been the only reason!"

"Yes," Penny granted, instantly. "Every morning that Caleb woke up and opened his - your green eyes - I thought of you. I spent years trying to locate your whereabouts well before Caleb's support money was an issue. I scoured San Francisco. Then, someone at church mentioned your name, and you were all the way over in LA. Take me at my word, or don't, it doesn't matter to me. It's the truth."

Matt let his eyes wander. Penny smiled a patchwork smile there in the hallway, an earth child with her freckles and her fine brown hair with all its split-ends.

"See, I know you love me," she said, softly, like she was giving him a clue to a mystery. "You just won't let yourself feel it. You can't stand hoping. But, Matt, every love has its burdens. Caleb is the best thing in my life, and still, his disability is so hard to cope with sometimes that I have to leave the house and just walk the block to get my peace back. What I mean is that the pain only makes the love stronger. Pain makes the love permanent." She gave a tearful laugh. "If you just let yourself hope again I can help with the rest. I promise."

It wasn't the heat of the moment. It wasn't the ensuing silence, or a matter of having been worn down. Matt meant it when he looked at Penny and he breathed through a single word. "Okay."

Penny smiled. Her frame looked small with exhaustion. "We'll take it slowly. As slow as you want."

By the time Penny finished speaking Matt had reached her side. They embraced one another, tightly; Matt's arms remembering what to do after years of storage at his sides.

#  

The lifelessness: there was a weight to it that pushed Curtis down, physically bending his bones, making it hard for him to rise from a sitting position. Lately, it took every muscle in his legs to walk normally.

"Cell search!" the Unit Commander called.

Curtis got to his feet, his lower back clenching with pain. Every day it seemed to be getting worse. As long as no-one picks up on it, I'm not the biggest target walking...

That day, Curtis wasn't expecting visitors, so it came as a shock to him when he was informed that Suzannah Fry awaited him in the visitation room.

It had been weeks since he'd laid eyes on any woman other than his lawyer, and Suzannah instantly struck him as being truly beautiful: with her red lipstick mouth and the blue-white irises that could scare any man from a hundred paces. She had a tight, fatless figure despite the baby bump. Her wrists were clumped with masses of turquoise and silver Aztec jewellery and a peacock feather adorned her hair. Somewhere in-between the jewellery, the blue velvet dress, the mascara and the rigidity, he saw Suzannah for the first time as woman instead of freak. He remembered how Lily had loved her, not just as some friend or even as a sister. She had loved Suzannah in the same watchful way that all humans care for their very own being.

The witch sat and picked up the receiver with a brief arch of her eyebrows. "Hey."

"Hey. Hi," Curtis nodded. It sounded blunt; un-admiring. He lifted a smile and tried harder. "You look good."

Suzannah's eyes constricted with learned caution. "What, no insult? That's got to be a first."

"C'mon," he said. "Give me a break."

She sat back and scrutinized him. "You okay in here?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you don't look okay."

"If there's some place they sell a better look just holler, I'm buying." Curtis tried to say it jokingly, but his grin didn't arrive. He reached out, tapping his index finger on the Perspex. He held up one hand in an exaggerated shrug. What is this visit?

In return, Suzannah shed a question that changed everything. "How the hell did this happen?"

"What exactly?"

"Any of it! All of it." Suzannah sucked in a breath, averting her face; but, before she did, Curtis caught a glimpse of Suzannah's saltwater eyes.

"Hey." He tapped the Perspex again "Don't cry on me, alright?"

"Well, I'm sorry," Suzannah sniffed. "My best friend, the person I loved more than anyone else, is dead in the ground; and you look like a returned soldier. I'm supposed to just 'get with it'? Whatever. It's not that easy."

Curtis passed a hand over his recent number-one haircut. Suzannah shook her fringe out of her eyes with a cool toss of her head. "I'm picking up the pieces. I'm getting on with shit. But, here I am saying all this and it's not like you ever gave a damn about my life, so... I'm basically here because Lil would kick my ass if I didn't at least check in on you."

Curtis glanced over his shoulder when the guard said, "We have limited visitation spaces available with the booth. You got exactly five minutes."

Curtis faced Suzannah again, running a finger over the ledge before him where someone had carved out the words fuck ass. "What did you think? When I did what I did?"

"The...?" Suzannah's face stilled. "You mean what happened with Joel?"

Curtis tipped his head in a circle, taking the kink out of his neck, and he stared unblinkingly at the name tattooed on the underside of his left wrist. Lily.

"I didn't even give her CPR," he said, indistinctly. "I killed two people, not just one."

Suzannah dropped her voice. "Should you be saying all this over the phone?"

"Why the fuck not?" Curtis demanded. "What are they going to do to me, lock me up? Done."

Suzannah's eyes rounded in shock at his intensity. Curtis slumped in his seat, shaking his head. Seconds ticked by into a full minute, then another...

# S

She felt for him genuinely, then, as she would have felt for a victim of a hit-and-run accident. Out of the blue, and out of something kinder than duty, she was glad that she was one of the few who had returned to see if Curtis had survived.

"You didn't kill her," she said. "Just ask yourself this, who was there first? You or Joel? If it hadn't been for what he did, you wouldn't have needed to do the CPR in the first place."

She couldn't see to the end of Curtis's streak of self-loathing. He seemed to stand one hundred deep in his own queue of critics. She took up her new task, speaking hurriedly down the line as the guard moved off his wall-lean with, "Time's up, Sloane."

"What you did to Joel? Hey, give him a sec!" She glared at the guard as he reached for Curtis's arm. The man relinquished his grip on Curtis. "One more minute," he said, and tracked back to the wall.

Suzannah spoke into the receiver, speaking through the Perspex and down, she hoped, through Curtis's regulation suit to where it really counted. "I think you were a good guy doing a bad thing, for a good reason, and in that order: a good guy, doing a bad thing... for a good reason. You know, by the rules of the universe two positives cancel out a negative."

Curtis frowned like he'd forgotten the concept. Suzannah nodded, pushing the point home. "Two positives in the same scenario, and the negative is history. I'm not bullshitting you to make you feel better. It's a universal fact."

"That's true." Curtis's tone lifted. "That's true. Two positives automatically cancel out-"

"Minute's up." The guard had returned. No more nice-guy-attitude. "On your feet."

The receiver went down on Curtis's side of the wall with a metallic clunk. He stood with his legs in the at-ease position, his hands being cuffed at his lower spine. His head was tilted back and he stared at Suzannah from the bottom of his eyes. And he was smiling.

Chapter 21

Suzannah nestled her bedside lamp amongst a stack of clothing in a box. Brendan looked on in bewilderment; smoking a cigarette he had cadged from Suzannah.

"So, what did your mother say, exactly?" he asked for the second time. "I'm still lost here. Hey, don't lift that, it's too heavy!"

He took a Wiccan meditation guide from Suzannah the size of a telephone directory and pushed it in beside the lamp. Suzannah fitted the box flaps into one another as she talked.

"It's not what she says, it's what she does. This is the kind of stuff that I teach and she teaches - she taught me, for God's sake! She'll call the circle with her Sisters and bind me from whatever course of action she deems unwise for me."

Suzannah sat on the end of the bed, making the bedsprings creak, staring dismally at the loaded box. When she spoke, it was more to herself than to Brendan.

"How the hell is this even happening? This isn't karma. It's Ester Fry gone supersized. Is this what Wicca means to her? She groomed me. Have I learned to be that ruthless, too?"

Brendan opted to avoid the question by cranking open the bedroom window and tossing his cigarette onto the lawn. Smoke accompanied the words that left his mouth as he rubbed Suzannah's shoulder. "Maybe she just didn't want to talk any more when she disappeared into the back of shop. You're jumping to conclusions. It's been three days and nothing has happened, right? Look, I've got to make a call to my boss about a work thing, but we'll come back to this, okay?"

He deposited a kiss on Suzannah's cheek. "Hey," he said, in leaving. "It'll sort itself."

When Brendan had left the room, Suzannah ignored the impulse to smoke and continued to pack, beginning to sort through the dresser drawers. She came across the Gideon Bible from Arizona. She brushed her fingertips over the cover: the book she'd clung to while fearing a miscarriage. Some mystical transaction occurred right then, Suzannah reflected. I'll never swallow the Bible's contents or the concept of an emperor-type Deity, but for that time and in that moment, the Gideon was what I was meant to call upon. And somehow, in some way, it delivered.

She slipped it into the pocket of her denim overalls. It would be her talisman, in case it could deliver more.

This is it, now, she realized as she caught sight of her haggard face in the mirror. All of the sorrows in her life had been hard to move on from, and none bigger than Lily's death. She could still mouth magical terms and call upon the powers that she knew to exist, just as she always had, and see real magical events occur. But, believing that those things are essential to life has changed.

Brendan re-entered the bedroom, smiling. "How's my girl? Cool as a cat?"

And it was then that Suzannah finally understood the exact dimensions of the change. Instead of believing, I've simply become superstitious.

#  

I knew the day would come...

Curtis had been counting on it, because there was no other way around the eventuality. On visitation day, a guard showed his ex-colleague from Fitness Fitnesse into the room. They viewed one another with paperwork smiles during Sean Getts's walk toward the visitors' station. Sean picked up the receiver, tousling his brown hair with tense fingers. "Hey, bud, how you doing?"

"Yeah, you know, like being in jail." Curtis forced a grin. "How's work? You good?"

"Nothin' different."

People of all races and ages had flooded into the visitation room, shrieking or running or slouching toward the telephones that connected them with whomever they had not given up as a lost cause.

Without further ado Sean came to the point. "Dude, Nikki and me still love the mobile and live-in trainer deal. It's just that you can't be there to make it with the money and... well, being there." He stopped on a hint.

"So, you want to buy me out," Curtis said.

Sean wore a dead-end smile. "Nikki pretty much wants you dead, by the way. Not a great way to go into a business partnership, y'know; screwing your co-worker then dissing her. You even consider that at the time?"

"Dude, look, I was drunk. Stupid mistake. Leave it at that."

Sean looped the phone cord under his elbow and stared across at the other visitors. "So, where are you at with this? We need to talk money."

"Buy me out," Curtis said, unemotionally: done with the chitchat. "Send the documentation through my attorney. You guys run with it."

#  

Suzannah sat folding laundry in the den of her bungalow. She was watching sitcom re-runs on TV. Laying a folded towel beside her, she tipped the screen of her cell-phone to check the time. Ten pm. Brendan gets off work at eight thirty...

The baby swam and kicked a tiny limb in protest. Suzannah touched her belly, saying, "I know. Where's that Daddy of yours?"

As days passed, Suzannah's fears over her mother's possible intentions seemed to amount to nothing. Regardless, she still aimed to move house. She had booked the removal truck for two weeks time, as she needed to work out her rent notice. Then, she'd be done with the shop forever. If she thought about it too much, it brought a lump to her throat. Her beliefs, the merchandise, her identity of following in her mother's footsteps, had gradually become a thing of the past without her stopping to realize it. In years past, and as far back as she could remember, those things had been the very air that she breathed.

"What kind of work do you expect to get in Bakersfield?" Ester had asked. And it was true. The only job Suzannah had ever worked was in Every Witch Way. After graduating from high school she had no work experience to speak of and no formal qualifications with which to create a resumé. She'd replied, "I'll just be a Mom."

"Well, you won't be happy just being a Mom," Ester prophesied. "At least not once baby's at school all day and you're staring out the window waiting for home time. And, besides, you've never relied on the man to be the bread-winner before."

"I'll take care of it," Suzannah had said, ending the conversation. She picked up her cell-phone again. Ten thirty. She had barely begun to dial Brendan's cell phone number when she heard low male voices at the front door and the sound of someone fumbling with the lock.

Going into the foyer she said, "Who's there?"

"It's Brendan and Jake!"

Suzannah rolled her eyes. Jake: party animal extraordinaire. He had mocked Brendan endlessly about his sobriety until Suzannah put him in his place and he hadn't said an abrasive word since. She unlocked the door. Brendan stood at his impressive height above her, smiling down, when she noticed the glaze over his eyes. Her hands instinctively curled into fists by her sides. The baby hastily rolled for cover.

Brendan watched his partner's expression change and he said, "Baby, wait."

"You promised!" Suzannah said. "I can't believe you! This is it. This is fucking it."

She walked past him onto the front steps.

Jake called after her, "Suzannah, he has something to tell you."

Turning back on the second step, Suzannah simply stared at Jake. He backed away with a no-contest show of hands. Brendan stepped forward. "Suz, I'm leaving. Not leaving you, but... obviously, I fell off the wagon. It's the first time it's happened since I promised you. But, I'm going to take care of it. I-I booked into a rehab centre. Jake's driving me there, now. Tonight."

"Wh-" Suzannah hid her face briefly, and scattered her hands in the air. "What is going on, here? I expected you home from work, and now you're off to dry out? For how fucking long? We're having a baby for Chrisssake! We're moving out of town."

"It's the only way I can keep my promise." Brendan descended the steps to be beside her. He reached out to touch Suzannah's face and she jerked away, saying in an undertone, "Can he not be here?"

Brendan glanced over his shoulder and he nodded at Jake to disappear. Suzannah stalked into the night-time dark. Her bare feet minced over the gravel. "Bren, I didn't even care about you smoking pot. I tried to keep the pressure right off you."

"I know. It's all me, none of it's you." Brendan rubbed his forehead. "I don't even know why I did it. Honestly? It's like I couldn't remember having sobered up! After service shutdown, my boss grabbed a beer and offered one and it was force of habit, I guess."

"How many?" Suzannah asked dully, her arms folded like a barrier across her chest.

"Three, maybe four. It doesn't matter. This rehab centre runs for twenty-eight days. This is my last shot, Suz, so I don't screw it up when the baby comes. I have to go pack, because if I don't go tonight the centre has no more spaces available until New Year. I got lucky."

Suzannah surprised herself. She hadn't thrown anything at Brendan, or screamed herself hoarse. "Okay. Go pack," she said, counting off on her fingers. "Underwear, deodorant, shaver-"

Brendan took Suzannah's face between his hands and hovered a moment before kissing her so that Suzannah had the option to pull away. She didn't.

"You're the strongest woman I know," he said, touching a finger to her forehead. "Must be this third eye, huh?"

"Mm," she said. "Must be."

Brendan kissed her again and broke away, lighting the steps.

Suzannah frowned after him, mulling over what he had said. "Three, four beers... don't even know why I did it... like I couldn't remember sobering up... don't know why I did it..."

"You witch," she said into the blackness. "You didn't go after me. You went after him."

She ascended the stairs and sought out Brendan in the bedroom. Jake slipped by her into the hallway to allow them privacy.

"It's-it's her!" Suzannah said. Brendan shouldered his overnight bag, looking askance.

"My mother! You said 'I don't know why I drank the beer'. She did it. She made you reach for that bottle by influencing you through your mind. Do you get it? Okay, one of the few ways to cancel out witchcraft's effect is to be aware that it's being channelled at you so that you can consciously fight it."

"What? That doesn't even-"

"It's the only thing that makes sense! It was outside of your conscious will, right?"

"Right. I almost felt robotic." Brendan frowned. "You're serious? She'd do that?"

"She'd do anything. She wants me and the baby right here." Suzannah took a deep breath. "So, now you know. And, you're in the right place at the centre."

She started to laugh a quiet, thankful laugh, her eyes building tears. "I'm so happy, babe, you have no idea."

"But, how? I'm a little-"

"Because I out-witted her! Magically speaking. And, not only do you escape her influence by being in a place where people actively keep you from drinking, but this is an accidental fucking coup for our relationship."

"So, I'm... doing the best thing?"

"Absolutely." Suzannah kissed her boyfriend, then: gently, and with dedication, feeling new warmth inside. She moved her head back to whisper, "Bren, I've broken away from her control. For the first time in my life I feel like I can do it on my own terms. It's my life now."

#  

Two days after Curtis received the visitation from his ex-colleague, the pain - the acid \- in his lower back was at its peak. He found he could barely climb out of bed for cell inspection and chow time. The doctor had sent him to physiotherapy with little result.

When morning chow was over Curtis asked to be returned to his cell. Left alone in his new bedroom, Curtis tried a variety of prone positions on his bunk. Nothing works. He got stiffly to his feet and moved to the ground in a deep squat like a frog. After ten minutes, his calves drilled with pins and needles from lack of circulation and he clambered back onto the bed.

There's no history in our family of back problems, he thought. Other than constipation, other than lack of exercise or dehydration, what the hell else can it be?

It was far more than a pulled muscle; more than a pinched nerve. Slipped disc? He wondered. The pain intensified, then, as if he'd been stuck with a knife. He groaned and pulled himself onto his side by grabbing a fistful of the flimsy regulation blanket.

He had experienced a particularly vivid dream during the night: of having a meal in the Carson home, the way it had typically been with Beau Carson miss-hearing everything and Dana discreetly damning Lily's cheeriness while Grace served up plates of steaming food. It segued into a movie type scene where the picture fell into blackness and Lily sat bolt upright in her coffin over freshly dug earth with black lipstick on her mouth, crying happily, "We're going to make it!" Then there flashed a string of fat men, four deep, running on a single treadmill in a gym and one by one, they toppled off the back of the machine to form a fleshy pile. On reflection, the dream seemed innocuous enough. Yet in the moment it woke him with a sweating start.

That afternoon, he used his phone card to ring Suzannah collect. "Can you get in touch with Grace Carson?" he asked. "Tell her to come visit me when she can."

#  

Matt poured wine into the three glasses before him until Penny laughed and held a protective hand over hers, saying, "That's plenty!"

Scott sized up his own glass. "I don't know why we elected you barman. I'm a positive guy, but there's no way that glass is half full, my friend."

They all laughed as Matt poured his friend more wine and they each helped themselves to the plate of appetizers. Scott ceremoniously raised his glass. "A toast!" He said. "To 'future endeavours'."

Matt and Penny exchanged a quick, quiet smile and the three of them clinked glasses.

# P

"So, who's making the dinner?" Penny asked, taking a sip of wine. Matt had been studying her, and she knew it. She knew that Matt saw the way her bracelets tinkled down her forearm as she lifted the glass to drink, the way she gathered her perfumed hair in a fist and released it in a flow down her back. He was memorizing the sight of her for the new history they would make. And while he took it all in, Penny was lapping it up: the way that the world was just right, how nothing felt better than sipping wine in a sun-drenched room with people who'd known the best and the worst of her. These people who offered that long-lost familial bond that did not just mean surviving, it meant flourishing.

# M

Matt drum-rolled his fingers on the table in announcement. "Before we move onto the subject of dinner, I wanted to let you guys know that I was contacted by Gerald Voight, today."

"The elder?" Scott asked, double-checking.

Matt nodded, and his eyes took in Penny and Scott in quick succession. "Somehow, word leaked out - maybe through Young Adults, who knows. Or was it you, Scott?"

"My hands are clean, whatever it is."

"Anyway, word got out about Pen and I getting together," Matt reported. "Gerald emailed me out of the blue yesterday. He said he'd had a talk with the other elders at SMCC and, in light of mine and Penny's reunion and the eventual possibility of marriage - they would reconsider my return to leadership."

At the end of the announcement, no one spoke. Matt looked askance.

"Anyone mention the word hypocrisy?" Scott said.

"It would only be considered because we're getting married?" Penny asked.

"You know, 'the marriage bed is undefiled' theology," Matt said. "You guys missed the gist of the announcement. They might actually ask me back."

Scott shook his head, adamantly. "You know, we were angered by your dismissal because of the hypocritical way it was handled. Now it's just hypocritical leniency. I hope you turned Gerald down out of hand."

"Right," Matt said, flatly. "But, 'cutting off the nose to spite the face' is cold comfort in light of everyday life. Cut your congregation from your own context, Scott. What are you left with?"

Penny interjected, drawing eyes. "Look, Matty, you could even be a counsellor. A missionary if you wanted to! If the church didn't need you, exactly as you are, two months ago..."

"I can't believe you guys. I thought you'd be happy for me."

"We'd be happy for you if it was something that's true to who you are and how you work," Penny said, guardedly.

"After the weeks and weeks of saying 'God will provide'-" Matt said to Scott, when the priest overrode him with: "God doesn't provide hypocrisy. Let's just get that straight."

Matt rubbed a hand down his face, smiling wryly. "Okay. So, how many churches do you know of that don't deal in some form of hypocrisy? Well, let's be honest! Say I go and find a more liberal-minded church. There's a fine line between liberalism and legalism, and legalism is not the theology I believe, or teach, or live. And, before you say it, Scott, I'm not confusing liberalism with God's grace. I want all of my past to count, not just to 'not matter'."

Scott pretended to shield his face behind his palms. "You done? Any more fuselage coming my way?"

Penny topped up Matt's glass of wine. Scott sat back and linked fingers behind his head. "It's this simple. You go and ask the church council if it matters whether you marry the mother of your child in two days, or in ten years. Here's a fact: if anything could 'redeem' the events surrounding Caleb's birth, it was present when they turned you out of ministry, or it wasn't there at all."

#  

Two days following Curtis's call to Suzannah, Grace Carson was buzzed into the jail visitation room. Upon sight of her, Curtis was stunned at how Grace had aged since they last met. Her once honey-blonde hair had turned entirely white. She walked with the careful steps of someone who was slowing down in life. She sat and picked up the receiver with a smile. "Hello honey," she said, cupping her chin in her hand to stare directly into Curtis's eyes. "I hope you've been visited plenty."

"Yeah. Uh, thanks for coming."

"I talked with Suzannah," Grace said. "It took some time for me to absorb the whole... event. It's difficult to know what to-to say."

Curtis expected Grace's eyes to fill with tears, but they remained bone dry. Maybe she's cried all she can for now, he thought

He was suddenly aware of an overwhelming jetlag as if he hadn't touched down on familiar territory in months. His back intensified its now-familiar throb. "I want to put you in contact with my attorney," he began. "She can arrange to pay back the business loan."

"Oh, we're able to keep the wolf from the door, honey," Grace said. "Don't worry about that."

"I know, but I just need to sort out some sh-... I need to sort some stuff while it's on my mind."

"Alright," Grace said, and nodded against her palm. "Well, thank you."

Once Curtis had relayed his attorney's details, Grace seemed to sense that there was little point in elongating the visit. A moment passed while they stared at one another. Then Grace began to speak, and it caught Curtis off-guard in a way that he couldn't have foreseen. She said, " 'The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.' "

Curtis felt unutterably confused by the benediction. After a long pause, the only thing he could find to say was, "Uh, okay."

Grace smiled dimly and replaced the receiver. Curtis simply sat and watched the woman with fragile elegance take her leave, the phone receiver still resting warm in his fist. The words themselves held no power over him. Yet, the gentleness with which she'd said the words - did.

In that moment, Curtis had glimpsed Lily's upbringing in the Carson's hands and he began to grasp the reality of Lily's search for enlightenment during the past year. He had seen these things written in Grace's peaches-and-cream skin, the velvet soft light in the very depths of her hazel eyes.

For Lily, it was Baby's First Picture Bible while wearing a homemade sweater. Then, fully grown, it was returning to church and calling everything into question when even she herself had acknowledged that it was a difficult pill to swallow - knowing there were no guaranteed answers to be found.

Grace had suddenly illuminated her daughter and his fiancée within one sound bite, and, seeming to see Curtis as neither hero nor criminal, Grace had found it in herself to give Lily... over to him.

#  

Matt spent his week drafting a letter to the leadership team of the Santa Monica Community Church. At week's end he called Scott and Penny together to review it with him. They burned hours that Sunday night into the early morning hours of Monday, debating the letter's contents, scrapping some sections and approving others. Collectively, they settled on the one condition of the proposal submission: that Matt would only attempt to go back into ministry if the church congregation was fully apprised of the facts leading to his leadership dismissal. This time the congregation, not the leadership council, would decide by general consensus whether Matt returned to his Young Adult Director role.

After the letter had been sent, Matt initiated a self-imposed exile. He unplugged the telephone, drew the curtains, and posted a sign on the front door requesting No Visitors. There, he fasted and began returning to himself in the fallopian nurture of the house and in the Word of God, silence and divine-edict his sole nutrient supply.

He read the Old Testament like someone determined to crack an impossible code; reading through Adam and Eve's loss of freedom, and of Abraham's near-fatal encounter when offering his son Isaac on an altar: of Queen Esther suffering marriage to a pagan king... Ruth losing her husband and accepting the then-scandalous status of a second marriage, producing a son who would one day become the grandfather of King David. Then of King David, himself, who was chosen to rule over a restless Israelite nation and whose previous king was to become his deadliest enemy.

Matt combed through the book of Psalms to discover King David's heart and mind. He read of the dizzying victories and of the catastrophic failures. He imbibed David's anguished ranting at God Almighty to spare his life, to spare his illegitimate son and above all his sanity. The psalms of praise when peace reigned were seldom and few.

At this juncture, Matt realized one thing anew: Love and trust are natural consequences of human dealings, but faith in God is between God and man alone.

It was God's job to foster a faith relationship with himself, Matt Livingston, as a human being, and God's job to deliver what His grace had promised to fulfil. Matt bowed to the ground, stilling himself in the moment, and he struggled with the weight of his loss, the weight of his love and his needs. He realized, by virtue of his own experience and by virtue of his spiritual predecessors that he needed to be emptied - in order to be filled.

Things will seem lost. But they are never lost for good.

"Father," he said, "I've said these things for so many years. But, I've only seen the reality of it right now; the simplicity of You. You are unafraid of my dirtiness. You are moved by my grief and by my doubts. You work best with average things, because it's only then that You are truly my Father and I am truly dependent as Your son. You do not love me for trying to be sinless. You love me because I am a sinner in need of Your grace."

#  

Another calendar week had passed. Out of necessity, Curtis placed a follow-up appointment with Medical Services during morning sick call. Allowed an emergency time-slot, Curtis presented his jail ID card with his written request and paid the two-dollar inmate fee to see the doctor.

The man was as old as Methuselah, with a bushy white beard and eyebrows that stood out from his forehead a clear inch. When the doctor sat on his chair, it was by incremental stages that seemed to take a lifetime as he said, "Let's see if we can't help you out today."

And Curtis couldn't resist saying, "Can I help you out?"

Dr Methuselah merely smiled as if he'd heard it before and he opened a folder that contained Curtis's patient record, his ID number printed down the binding. The Dr nodded several times as he read the notes with an index finger. "Well, the X-rays show nothing out of the ordinary and your MRI came back fine. Your blood work is exemplary aside from lowered levels of magnesium, which we can address with a supplement. Your... psychological assessment returned a standard passive-aggressive personality profile. No red flags for mental instability there."

He clapped the folder shut and pushed it across the desk, eyeing Curtis over his glasses. "You've been working with a physiotherapist? Mm. Any noticeable progress?"

"Nah. The pain is pretty much constant," Curtis admitted. "Never eases up."

"So, what we seem to have here is a case of unidentified aggravation."

Curtis felt like he was part of a bad theatre show when the doctor held up an index finger and said, "Ah, but is it unidentifiable? My colleagues and I collaborate closely with psychologists and the like, and there is now a valid theory as to the cause of lower back pain which often originates, in layman's terms, in prolonged internalization. This means a long-term psychological habit of suppressing emotions, such as personal secrets, grievances, rage, and depression. Many cases have been found where the patient's body has simply run out of ways to cope with one or more powerful emotions."

Dr Methuselah splayed his hands in question. "Is there something to this theory? I believe so. More particularly in your case, as there is a complete lack of medical evidence to support a physical manifestation of injury or aggravation otherwise."

"Right," Curtis said, edgily. "You think I have a secret?"

The doctor tipped his head with a smile. "I'm familiar with a common secret, and that belongs to every man in this building who doesn't own a swipe card. You hate being in jail. But, my remaining question is, when did the pain begin? Did it begin the moment you entered these doors? Or did it begin sometime later, sourced in something that was not necessarily jail related?"

Curtis stared out of the large office window at an unadulterated glimpse of blue sky. Everything within him demanded to see more of it, to own it as his right. I'm blameless.

"No," he said, trying to disassociate himself from what he was about to say. "It's not just jail."

"I see. So, there was some intermediary conflict or circumstance which caused the pain to begin?" the doctor prompted. He did not wait for Curtis to reply and Curtis was glad to have his dignity spared. Methuselah swivelled back to the desk, scribbled on a pad and tore the page from its base, handing it over. "I'm recommending you see a grief counsellor. You can have one appointed for you by the State, or you can out-source someone of your own choosing. A person with some degree of counselling credentials of course."

"No way around it?"

Methusaleh shook his head. "No way around it. Not unless you wish to continue living in pain, son."

Curtis eyed the page in his hand as he considered the option of counselling. No way around it? If that's the case I've got to find my own terms.

Matt Livingston immediately came to mind, like an ill wind blowing no good. Curtis nodded to himself, chewing the fat of the thought. His previous discussions with Matt had left him in defense mode. He decided to try offensive mode, instead: like some philosophical game of chess. Invade the opposition's territory. Take the fucker out. If I've got to do it, I've got a free pass to settle the score once and for all.

He was watching the sky when he took a breath and said, "I do know a guy who visits here. He's on your 'Minister of Record'. His name's Matt Livingston. I want him."

Chapter 22

It was the irony that got to Curtis the most; the irony that after working all his life to become financially comfortable, he'd finally landed a sum that made his dreams possible to fulfil. And now I can't spend a dime beyond what my attorney apportions for jail allowance.

He had never imagined it possible that money could be of absolutely no use to him. He also hadn't been single since the age of fourteen. He struggled deeply with the lack of company, a second opinion; the lack of sex and the soundless weight of co-existence in a bed. _Still_ , he thought, always coming back to that one, solitary conviction: _Punishing Joel was the only thing to do. And, I'd do it over for her._ He still didn't see it as having taken a life. Joel had proven himself a parasite. And parasites deserved to be exterminated.

Late that morning he was conducted into the visitation room. Through the Perspex, Matt Livingston lifted his hand briefly in greeting.

Curtis took a seat and picked up the receiver. "So, what've you got?" he asked, no-nonsense. "What can you tell me that I don't already know?"

Matt rested elbows on the counter, eyes downcast for some time. "Well, I, uh... I have a son," he said.

Mildly stunned, Curtis glanced at the minister's left hand and saw no wedding ring there. He didn't have to be told that an illegitimate child was the ultimate taboo in Christian circles. "Are you still in ministry?"

"No." Matt said, and he left it at that. "I know that Lily began her spiritual search with questions about God's goodness. What's your own position on the subject of God as an existent being? Or, even as 'good'?"

"I... looked into stuff for myself so she'd know that I could think for myself," Curtis said, parting with the words because it was Doctor's orders. "Didn't last."

"Why's that?"

"Because no-one can prove that God exists. And, even if someone _could_ stand up and prove that He does? Fuck him."

"Tell me why you feel that way."

Curtis sat back in his chair, barely contained. "God forgives people and overlooks their sins, right? What else does that make him but a bastard who forgives other bastards?"

# M

Matt was quiet for a time, not wanting to accelerate Curtis's tension. "So, if God proclaims to forgive Joel Shearer for what he did to Lily, it means that He is effectively okay with what happened to her?"

Curtis owned a new expression of recent times. He had become a caged, cornered thing. You couldn't imagine it, but I _have_ learnt a thing or two about being cornered lately, too, Matt thought.

"I'm just trying to get a handle on your viewpoint," he explained. "Let's put it figuratively so it doesn't feel so close to home. Let's say you have a child who grows into a man who makes bad decisions. You cannot simply pick him up and _make_ him act the way he should act, or make him re-think his worldview. A parent simply cannot do that. The child, now the man, has his own set of values."

"But, we're not talking about parents," Curtis said. "We're talking about God. So, God can't make things happen?"

"And what if He could? Would you want Him to change _you_ without your consent? To make you believe in Him by force?"

Curtis squinted momentarily.

"People acting the way they do, it's their choice," Matt said. "As Christians, God simply asks us to consider a better alternative - to seek Him instead of relying solely on ourselves to navigate through life."

"Right on," Curtis said quietly, but with steel. "And what'd that get _you_ , a kid and a redundancy package? Straight up, winning combo right there."

Undeterred, Matt said, "I think you're right about one thing. Forgiveness can't be constructed. It can't be forced. Humans are not naturally equipped with the ability to forgive and it's only through some form of enlightenment that it really becomes possible."

"That's where you come in, right? You're my enlightenment. So help me forgive, or forget, and let's get this done."

Matt smiled. "Faith isn't some _ATM_ machine. You can't 'put in' and immediately 'receive'. All of us wish that were the case, but... I'll spare you the wait."

# C

Curtis had honed his ability to think on the spot, putting the angst into words; something he'd always envied Lily for. He held forth, then, for the first time in his life.

"There are people in your church with contempt that is more poisonous to this society than _anything_ an Atheist could ever represent. No atheist ever began a holy war with a-a litany of religious genocide that spanned the centuries and _that_ under a banner of 'love'."

He stabbed a finger down on the booth counter. "You people stand up there and pray and quote from the Bible? Big fucking deal! The _Devil_ has scripture memorized. It says so in the Bible. Where are the pictures on Christian calendars that _aren't_ filled with sunsets and oceans; that show the faces of babies covered in flies and skeletal with AIDS instead? ' _Oh_ ,' " he intoned sarcastically, glancing to his right as if examining something. " 'April seventeenth. ' _This is the day the Lord has made_.' "

He lifted his wrists, handcuff indentations on his skin for Matt to see. " _This_ is the day the Lord has made. If Jesus ever walked the earth - _if_ he did - sure, he challenged a few of the powers of the day. He may even have died a gnarly death. Now he's on bookshelves the world over as 'Soup for Souls.' Man, that is your problem right there. At best, Christianity has this placebo effect for people. If it looks and sounds like something that'll comfort them? They swallow it whole. At worst, Christianity's out-workings are fucking _lethal_."

He gave a hard smile. "And anyway, don't assume the only reason I'd be an Atheist is because I'm pissed off at the idea of an all-powerful deity. Maybe I just refuse to give anything else credit because it doesn't add up. Maybe it's the _only_ sensible rationale."

# M

"I could understand that," Matt said, choosing his words with care. "However, you do realize how deluded it would seem to me if you were calling yourself 'satisfied' in life as you've been ordered here for chronic stress therapy. Let's face it. Death and loss are indiscriminate. Death is the equalizer. In the end it shows us that we're all identical; we are all fleeting glimpses of time. Nothing can cheat the eventuality of death. Can we say for certain where we go when we die? No, we theorize. You can argue that neither science _n_ _or_ religion can explain the entirety of life and death. A huge variety of questions are unanswerable. But, that doesn't mean that we should abandon our speculations or our attempts to progress."

Curtis gazed silently at Matt, cracking the knuckles of two fingers as Matt went on.

"Essentially, faith is a risk. Without the presence of doubt, faith simply wouldn't exist. It's the way in which our minds accept a reality that _cannot_ be explained simply through our senses."

Matt stopped, and decided to put it plainly. "Curtis, you're a smart guy. You loved your fiancée enough to tackle Joel with the belief that he'd damaged her. Yet, you don't hate enough to figure out why you hate what you hate. You hold up Atheism as your own kind of shield against the realities of life, as much as you call Christianity a shield for others. You said yourself that the search into Atheism didn't last because you thought 'fuck God, whether he exists or not'. That is similar to the thought for many Christians who say 'because I feel God has been good to me, I believe that He exists'. I'm challenging you - know things for yourself, alone. Not simply in reaction to anything or anyone else."

Seeing he was achieving little by referencing Christianity and the gospel, Matt found no alternative but to bring the session to a close, saying, "There's a commonly used therapy technique which has had a lot of success."

He expected another verbal barrage from Curtis. But, Curtis simply continued staring his electric-spark-bright bitter stare.

"So, you write a letter and you either burn it or send it out, afterward. Not to a physical address as such, but as a token, like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea. The physical act of doing this unburdening is what actually lessens the strain of anger or grief inwardly."

Curtis tipped his chair so that the front legs stood inches off the ground. He smiled, speaking more to himself than to Matt. "God got a postal address?"

Matt smiled appreciatively in return. "I think there's someone else you need to talk to more than God."

#  

It was mid-November and already LA Men's Central Jail was being decorated with sparse Christmas appeal. The inmates pulled tinsel and baubles from a crate and flung them willy-nilly onto a synthetic twenty-foot tree. An old-fashioned voice crooned White Christmas over the loudspeakers. The tinsel was a glitzy lie: Christmas a pointless pageantry in a place where nobody was going to receive what was wanted most of all, something that couldn't be bought or wrapped. Curtis realized for the first time in his life that his mother, for all her faults, cooked a Christmas turkey with apricot and pistachio stuffing worthy of a place in a cookbook. He wouldn't be eating it this year, or any year in the foreseeable future.

Rory recently reported that their father had tried to wipe Curtis from his Will on an evening after too many drinks at a work function. Extraordinarily, Helen had been able to dissuade Gary from the idea. To Curtis's knowledge, his mother had never won a single battle against Gary in their entire family history. Maybe this time there was no chance of Mom backing down, and Gary simply had to accede...

Curtis held onto this thought of his mother's boldness. He would wring all possible goodwill from it; bring it out and savour it in the emptiest hours of the night.

He stuck the last Velcro button on a giant cotton snowman and abandoned the task for visitation time. He had opted for open-visitation in a spacious grey toned room full of aluminium tables, preferring it to the glass booths, now that his parents were unlikely to show. An officer walked him to the visitation room. Suzannah was already seated at the far end, waiting, when he showed. Her face was a little paler, today. She'd forgotten the trademark red lipstick altogether. Curtis had asked her to visit for one, last favor. His old friends and his old life had disappeared like a breath on the wind. Some part of this made his insides feel blank as a result.

As she saw Curtis approach with an awkward gait and lower himself gingerly to sit, Suzannah said, "How come you're walking like you've got a rod up your ass?"

"I don't know. Just ask that a little louder."

Suzannah peered around at the inmates and their visitors with a pithy smile. Curtis didn't know how to arrange the thought as he stared at Suzannah, but it was as if the witch's face had previously been comprised of gates: and now the gates had finally, somehow, creaked open.

Leaning in, Suzannah said, "It's not how they say it is in here, right? With, you know..."

"No, what?"

"With the whole 'don't drop the soap' thing."

Curtis dragged up a grin, shifting position to ease his back. "I saw the Doc, it's a stress thing. Anyway, you think I'd let someone get close enough to do that? Hell, no."

"No. I guess closeness was never your problem," Suzannah said, but the truth of her statement made their smiles a touch uneasy and for a moment their eyes travelled without connecting as if the familiarity was too soon after years of mutual dislike.

Suzannah was the one to re-break the ice. "Me and Bren are moving to Bakersfield next week. His folks are there and my mother isn't, so... it's good news all round."

Curtis nodded, distractedly. "I'd take any kind of news right now. Involuntary Manslaughter could be anything from ten months to a four-year sentence. My attorney just has to prove that I didn't intend to kill."

Suzannah said nothing in return. There seemed nothing she could add. Curtis drummed his fingers on the tabletop, watching himself do it. "Suz, from the start you were the only one I could call. Everything I asked, you did it."

"Hey, let's not... do the whole thank-you bit," Suzannah said, quietly.

I was never any good at expressing gratitude. I do know how to switch subjects, though, he thought, and he indicated to Suzannah's pregnant belly. "You feel ready yet?"

"Who's ever ready?" she said.

Curtis experienced an emotion, something on a downhill slide, somewhere deep within his chest. _We were going to have children, too._

With a half-smile, Suzannah caught on. "She wanted a little girl so badly."

"Mercy," he said.

"I know."

Curtis popped a knuckle on his right hand. His eyes asked a question of Suzannah and she seemed to guess it instinctively once again. "Mercy really isn't my style," she said.

"You mean the name? Or the response to something?"

Her smile said it all _._ She hadn't gotten that way, with her face full of edges, for nothing.

"Sure it is," Curtis said.

Suzannah put a finger to her lips as she stood, saying, "Yeah, well, it's our secret."

With a glare, she prompted, "Right?"

"Right, right," Curtis said.

"So, what's the favor you couldn't ask for over the phone?"

# S

Suzannah watched as Curtis fussed a hand in the pocket of his regulation suit and pulled out a sheaf of folded papers. He didn't look at Suzannah when he spoke. "I got permission to give this to you once _they'd_ read the letter, in case there were any hidden codes suggesting illegal activity. It's been approved as part of my therapy, anyway, so..." his voice trailed monotonously.

He nudged the papers across the table with his index finger, finally making eye contact. "I need you to go buy a bottle and stick the letter inside. Put it on the grave."

Suzannah collected the letter. She saw the snaked effect of words written _hard_ onto the opposite side of the paper. "I'll go today," she said.

"What, uh... what else is _there_?" Curtis asked.

Standing there, Suzannah found the visiting room had become a little murky, but not through tears. It was as if she had become miniaturized and was standing in the middle of a plate of lemonade jelly. The room _quivered_ all around her, with the detraction of a vital life force.

"There's one of those ribbon spinning things on a stick that you never know where to buy," she said, with a weak laugh. Curtis smiled half-heartedly in return. "There are a couple photos of Lil posing with people, obviously left by whoever was in the photo, and uh..." Suzannah rubbed her nose, "An old childhood t-shirt of hers, a bag of marshmallows and a cup of sand and seaweed from the pilings underneath the Pier. That's most of it."

"So... you'll go today?"

"Sure." Suzannah blinked deeply, reluctantly through her gypsy fringe. Preparing to leave, she said, "Take care, boy."

She fluttered the fingers of one hand, braced the other hand against her bulky stomach, and slowly, seeming hand-in-hand with the little one, she trailed from the room.

#  

Suzannah stood before her best friend's headstone. The wind took her hair and made strands of it fight across her face. She'd bought a transparent bottle with a cork stopper. With Curtis's letter rolled up inside of it, the bottle stood in pride-of-place amongst the graveside mementos and Suzannah found herself not thinking or feeling anything in particular. She simply stood there in a bus timetable kind of waiting.

Eventually, she could no longer resist the urge and she got to the ground to kneel, reclaiming the bottle. After several attempts with her hands it became evident that it would take her jaw, alone, to make the cork budge.

She winced guiltily as she set her teeth to it. Presently, her head shot backward as the cork came free. She up-ended the bottle and wormed her finger inside the bottleneck to get a claim on the paper scroll. Once retrieved, the letter proved to be three pages long. Suzannah settled on her haunches to read. As she progressed through it, a solitary tear fled down her cheek. It began:

Dear Lil, I don't know if you know it but I'm in jail as I write this. If there's a heaven and a hell, I don't know if they communicate with each other. If they do, from Heaven you would know that Joel is in Hell, now, instead of being on earth.

I've been told to write this to help me deal with 'the baggage of emotional repression'. So, here's a lot of the stuff I never said to you and should have said at the time. Don't know where to start. Here goes anyway.

Thanks for putting up with my comments about your friends.

Thanks for being the sober driver whenever we went out, even though you did like to drink when there was an occasion for it.

Thanks for trying to teach me how to do laundry. Mostly I left my stuff in the washer til the next day so I walked around in clothes that smelled like yeast.

Thanks for helping me compose some of my health science papers when I was studying for my BA in health sciences, brain storming with me whenever I had mental blocks.

Thanks for queuing for concert tickets in heavy rain when we'd only been dating a month.

Thanks for putting up with my dad's flirting: for not telling me about that Christmas when you found yourself standing under the mistletoe with Gary, and as he gave you the traditional kiss, he slipped in a little tongue as well. You were right not to tell me til a year later so that the anger had a chance to cool and I had to drop it.

Thanks for letting me take the credit whenever we did the trivia quiz Friday nights at Club Fiesta with Rory and Jane back in the day: you often whispered the answers to me.

Thanks for not minding when I exchanged that shirt for another one, the shirt you bought me for my twenty-first birthday.

Thanks for always helping me look for my car keys and sunglasses whenever I couldn't find them.

Thanks for recording my favorite TV shows whenever I was out.

Thanks for loaning me the down payment for the RX8.

Thanks for saying I was hot even when I went through that weird phase of dyeing my hair.

Thanks for having the 'weird food' dinner parties every month in 2006, even though at the time I just found it weird. We had some interesting meals with animal hearts, tongues and intestines. I realize now you were just trying to broaden our palates and our interests.

Thanks for darning my socks so that I didn't have to buy a new pair right away.

Thanks for putting up with me whenever I came home drunk from work parties, when I left the lights on and played air guitar on the edge of the bed.

Thanks for massaging my neck whenever I was uptight about something.

Thanks for organizing the travel budget so we could occasionally get out of town. That weekend in Palm Springs became legend, how we had our wallets stolen at the food festival and how we found that rattlesnake at the back door of our cabin... we got drunk and we did karaoke at the steakhouse and people clapped along and threw out nickels and dimes for the hell of it.

Thanks for not commandeering 'boys' night out' like my friends' partners did with them.

Thanks for jogging with me whenever your asthma allowed. You never got far, but you tried.

Thanks for helping me practice my boxing by holding the pads; and that time I took a punch at the wrong angle and accidentally socked you in the eye, thanks for explaining the bruised eye to all your colleagues/family/friends and assuring them that I wasn't some abusive asshole.

Thanks for joining me on the diet I designed for the health expo in 2005. It didn't take, but we did get a little thinner anyway.

Thanks for eventually quitting the way you put your bare feet on the dashboard of the RX8 whenever we took a long drive somewhere. It mattered to me - then.

Thanks for being my nurse that time I broke my ankle; even though you drew the line at wearing a sexy nurse costume.

Thanks for not begrudging me after that incident when you were babysitting Meghan and we wound up in E.R because I didn't listen when you told me Meghan was allergic to peanuts and I gave her a chocolate-nut candy. I paid for the hospital bill but you paid for it with Dana's anger.

Thanks for being a good sport that time I tried to teach you how to drive stick shift. The lurching was hilarious and you eventually got over the embarrassment enough to laugh along with me. You stuck with auto transmission, which was probably just as well for the public's wellbeing, haha.

Thanks for keeping a calendar with everybody's birthday dates on it and reminding me whenever my friends had a birthday coming up - and sometimes buying a gift on my behalf if I was too busy to go shopping.

Thanks for not insisting (after the initial insistence) that we learn to Tango dance together; you went with Suzannah instead.

Thanks for playing the song 'Passenger Seat' on the drive home a few months into our dating; making it a song to remember because it was the first time you said you loved me.

Thanks for giving me twelve years of your life: twelve years that few people are lucky enough to look back on.

Thank you for saying you'd be my wife. I realize it, now. You were my greener grass.

The love will never stop

Always, Curtis

When Suzannah finally reached the end of the letter, she frowned at the post-script, double-checking what was written. PS: Suzannah, you can put this back in the bottle now.

She threw back her head and laughed.

#  

Three weeks to the day after Matt's letter had been sent to the church council a letter of response was received in the post. Matt ensured that Scott and Penny were present so they could read the letter together. By a slim margin of votes, the leadership of the Santa Monica Community Church had accepted his proposal _._ He would present his case to the church congregation the following Sunday morning.

With the letter weighing heavy on his mind and gaining encouragement from those closest to him, Matt returned to days of solitude: studying the Bible and spending hours in meditation and at prayer. He felt _seen_ again, and on the verge of recovery: there in the middle-land of hope.

#  

Brendan was released from rehab and he and Suzannah reunited to move to Bakersfield. It was then, just two weeks shy of Christmas as Suzannah was directing the movers where to place furniture in the den of the new house that her waters broke. It was two weeks ahead of her due date.

As the men held the sofa suspended, Suzannah directed with her hands. "Left, a little more, left... there."

The men dropped the sofa with a grunt. Brendan said, "Babe, look!"

He pointed to the wall where he had nailed his framed sobriety certificate. This was when Suzannah felt a pop deep inside of herself and her thighs ran with warm liquid. She said, "Uh, _Bren_?"

Hearing the urgency in Suzannah's tone, Brendan glanced over his shoulder. He followed Suzannah's gaze and lowered his eyes to the floor, saw the liquid darkening the carpet and dropped the hammer to rush to her side. "What, it's happening _now_?" he said. "Oh, shit. Where the hell is my cell-phone?"

# S

She hadn't pictured it happening like this. Not here, and not right now. Getting down on all fours, Suzannah began a laborious crawl in no particular direction, moaning deep in her throat. Brendan scattered the movers to return the following day, unearthed towels from a box marked bathroom and scattered them at random on the floor. He lifted Suzannah's skirt to check progress. "Um, what's it supposed to look like? It's not normal, but-"

"Midwife!" Suzannah said.

Brendan quickly dialled for an operator and said, "Give me the number of a local midwife."

Suzannah hanged her head. She spoke between puffs. "It's too soon! Oh _God_ , Bren."

Brendan was in conference on the phone. When he hung up he squatted and began to rub the small of Suzannah's back. "She's coming, babe."

Suzannah took the weight off one hand to swat at him. "Off!" she said breathlessly, and Brendan took the hint, drawing aside, leaving the work to the mother.

"Breathe _in_ through your nose, and _out_ through your mouth," the midwife instructed for the second time. Brendan walked in loose circles and he periodically asked questions that received no answer. "You need some water, babe? You want a pillow or something?"

Suzannah clung to the arm of the sofa, breathing as instructed. Everything she'd learned in pre-natal classes had evaporated from her mind. Her insides were scorched. As another contraction hit, she wailed in full blood, every syllable a dent in the air. "God-d. Jeesusss!"

She was face-first in the arm of the sofa and gave another muffled yell.

"Contractions are getting closer," the midwife said. "Push, Mommy, we're crowning! We need a _big_ push now."

Brendan ducked away from Suzannah's head to the midwife's position, keen for a view of his child entering the world. He knelt and watched as another contraction brought the baby out at the neck. He said, "Suz, it's coming. I can see the face!"

She had wanted the sex of the baby to be a surprise, but the pain was a greater surprise. Suzannah hunched into herself. "Oh-ho my _God_ , I can't do this!" she cried, flagging against the sofa, arms stretched out away from her as if she was adrift in the ocean and trusting a sofa to keep her afloat.

"Push, Mommy. You really need to _push_!" the midwife urged.

Suzannah whimpered, shaking her head. She took a deep breath and knuckled down to give a push that made her eyeballs strain. Her neck felt as if it was coming loose from her body. Her mouth yelled, " _Ughhh_!"

In that final, viscous surge, a small body came free into the midwife's arms. Suzannah broke into sobs. The midwife soon asked her for another push to expel the afterbirth. It was finally over. Suzannah lay on the carpet on her side, spent and beyond caring. The baby set up a piercing wail.

"Wh-what... is it?" she asked.

Brendan pulled Suzannah into his arms, kissing her sweat-damp hair. "It's a girl."

The room was full of foreign, earthy smells. She had no innards. She cried into the carpet. The midwife busied herself wiping off the baby. She swaddled the little girl in a fresh towel that Brendan supplied and she asked Suzannah to find a position in which to hold the baby.

With Brendan's help and with difficulty, Suzannah propped her back against the couch, her legs spread-eagled: tears still chasing down her face. The midwife loosed the baby into Suzannah's arms. "Here we go, Mommy. And what a _cutie_."

The baby was in full cry with a deep, warble-ended sound. She was crimson of skin and owned a head full of flat, crow-black hair.

"Longest twenty minutes of your life?" Brendan murmured. "And forget those chicks that need an epidural. You totally owned it, babe."

Only twenty minutes had passed, and in those twenty minutes, Suzannah realized that she and Brendan had gone from being a couple to being a family. Somehow, the pain was becoming more bearable.

"Oh my God," she said, looking down on the small form. She gave a soft laugh, seeing the baby's face complete with the requisite eyes and ears and mouth and nose. She'd worried that the baby would have to do without something; that she might have to suffer. She and Brendan simply remained where they were and began to - learn - the baby, seeing nothing amiss with this bundle of warm possibilities.

The midwife said, "Breast or bottle? She needs to feed right away."

Suzannah pointed to her chest. The midwife discreetly raised Suzannah's top and arranged Suzannah's breast into the baby's mouth. "You go to her; the baby never comes to you."

She showed Suzannah how to encourage the milk down. After two failed attempts, the baby latched on and began to drink, closing her pear-shine eyelids. The only sound in the room was the tiny sucking _click_ that the baby's mouth made. Blowing her fringe out of her eyes, Suzannah took a kiss from Brendan and she laid her head on his chest while the midwife looked on, saying, "Do we have a name?"

"We're working on it," Brendan answered.

Suzannah felt something well up inside herself, then: something larger than she could explain. Microfibers of sheer perfection grew within her as she watched her child take what she needed in order to live. She felt that she, herself, had somehow - become the world.

#  

The leader of the women's Bible group concluded the study by saying, "I believe it to be as the Word says. The Lord giveth. We need to emphasize this part of the verse more often, rather than only saying that the Lord taketh away."

From the corner of the room a soft, womanly, voice said, "Yes, the one qualifies the other. But, over-emphasis in either case is wrong."

Several women in the group lowered their heads in commiseration. The woman who had made the original statement spoke out, hesitantly. "I-I'm sorry, Grace. It was insensitive of me."

Grace Carson leaned forward in her easychair. A nearby lamp cast her cheeks in sheets of gold. "You'd be best to say what Jesus said. 'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid... I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.' "

She studied her fingers laced together in her lap. "I've been learning all about that word 'overcome', lately. It's a strange word. It can mean one of two very different things depending on the context. You can overcome something and this means you're triumphant. Or you can be overcome, and this means you're defeated. You know, it all... it all went horribly wrong and I don't know why. I had so many plans for her, plans I didn't even know existed until they were brought to nothing."

She composed herself by clearing her throat into her fist. A sympathetic woman with auburn hair said, "Oh Grace."

"Everything in my life that truly mattered or truly hurt me at the time... none of it exists any more. I am just this compilation of..." she sprinkled the fingers of one hand in midair, ante-magician. "They are just spent seconds. When I eat, someone else is using my jaws. When I breathe, I feel as if I'm dying and being brought back to life every time."

"Grace, if it's not helpful for you to share this-"

"-No, please. Please let me."

"Of course."

"My husband has recently become incontinent. I'm an ex-nurse, so I can deal with it. But, I'm also his wife. His wife misses him. His wife can see that the memory of Lily is no longer reflected in his eyes. That's when it occurred to me, when Christ said he'd overcome the world. He'd felt every minute of every sorrow we _all_ know here on earth, even losing His own Son on the Cross. The peace of the Lord is not some outstanding, dazzling kind of peace. It doesn't drape itself around my senses in some haze of bliss. And it doesn't remove the sting from the worst possible events that can happen in your life. But, this peace is a quiet, invisible continuum."

Grace blinked away tears and showed something approaching a smile. "It's okay if I don't understand everything, because even if it's so dark that I cannot see Him? It will never be so dark that He cannot see me."

#  

The week quickly surfaced into Sunday. Door attendants at the Santa Monica Community Church welcomed Matt into the foyer, wreathed in smiles. They politely greeted the woman and child accompanying him with inquisitive glances.

Matt had ensured that he and Penny arrived once the morning service was underway to avoid endless questioning from congregants. He pulled Penny aside as they approached the double doors to the auditorium. Her face was flushed with a nervous heat. Matt spoke low in her ear. "You can back out any time," he said. "I'm serious. Just say the word and you and Caleb can... go for a drive, go back to my place. You don't have to _physically_ be here if it's too much to handle."

Penny played with Caleb's curls for something to divert her attention. The boy had begun to call him daddy. Matt couldn't be happier. And today he couldn't be tenser.

"No," Penny said. "No way I'm running from this. We decided this together. I can't do it without butterflies in my stomach, but I can do it."

"Alright. We'll find a seat at the back so you won't feel under too much scrutiny. I don't want to make this any harder on you or Caleb than we can possibly help."

He had discovered new layers of strength within Penny. It became all the more obvious when she'd volunteered to have herself spotlighted as part of Matt's life history. It was going to be a hot, uncomfortable spotlight.

As Matt climbed the auditorium stairs accompanied by senior Pastor Terence Breen, a series of stunned murmurs travelled the room and the congregation broke into applause. Self-consciously Matt held back the air with his hands, saying into the microphone, "Thank you. Really. I'm happy to see some familiar faces again. Hey, Merrin! What - you're coming up?"

People laughed and yelled affirmations as Merrin jogged up the aisle to the pulpit to deliver a bear hug. Once the jubilation had settled, Terence borrowed the microphone to explain that Matt had returned to speak a few things for the church's consideration. "So, let us listen thoughtfully and with open hearts and minds as Matt addresses us this morning," Terence finished.

He clapped Matt on the back with a quiet, "God bless you," and he proceeded down the steps. Matt planed both hands flat and wide on the pulpit's surface, his head bowed low.

# P

A peculiar hush fell over the congregation. From where she sat, rocking Caleb's wheelchair with one foot to lull him to sleep, Penny slipped an anxious hand over her mouth. For the first time in years, she began to pray. She prayed for Matt's endurance.

# M

"Like all of you," he began, "My personal story doesn't simply commence at the point when I came into ministry five odd years ago. A particular part of my life story is what I want to share with you all today. I appreciate that a lot of what I have to say isn't going to be easy for some of you to hear, uh... let alone accept."

He scratched his forehead with his thumb then slipped his hands into his coat sides.

Breathe. Trust. Let go.

He knew one thing in that moment. Regardless of his words, his actions or his grief, his sole imperative was to find new ways of showing himself and the congregation that their God did not dispose of - and was in fact willing to work with - His losers.

"I'll ask that you try to reserve judgment until I have given you the full context of this history," he said, "Including where I'm at, presently, and where by God's grace I intend to aim for the future..."

#  

Curtis had been unable to shake off one remaining challenge. It was the challenge that Matt Livingston had presented to him on the day of the counselling session. The ex-minister had said, "Do it for yourself alone, not just in reaction to something or someone else."

That afternoon, Curtis sought permission to visit the jail library. Escorted there, he filled out a form with his jail identification number to start a library account. There he was in a room filled with books, the objects he hated most at his disposal. He walked the aisles of the library with a guard trailing him some ways behind. He saw it as a dare from Matt, the same way that his one-time colleague Nikki had dared him to develop his own philosophy to contend with Lily. Yet, this time was different. He was finally daring himself.

He soon found what he was looking for and avoided eye contact with the librarian as she scanned the titles for loan: Darwinism, Atheism, and Skepticism.

In the week that followed, Curtis could barely force himself to leave his cell for chow time or the exercise yards. This time, it was not back pain that anchored him. Instead, his eyes ached from late night reading sessions with only the light from the corridor for illumination after lock-down. He was finding words to be allies.

Nearing the end of a chapter one afternoon in his cell, he heard the mail trolley being wheeled down the gangway. The rumble of wheels stopped at his door and a voice called, "Sloane! Mail drop!"

A package clapped onto the concrete floor through the door slot. Curtis climbed off his cot to snatch it up. Mail was rare: a treat. Staff had broken the sealant band of the package to ensure nothing illegal had been delivered. Ignoring this, another in an endless line of privacy invasions, Curtis delved a hand into the package. From it he withdrew a solitary photograph. It was a snapshot of a tiredly smiling Suzannah with a baby asleep in her arms. The child's rosebud mouth hung open in a miniature loop in that typical way that babies slept: leaving all their innocence in someone else's hands.

Groping inside of the package again, Curtis found no accompanying letter or note. He turned the photograph and saw information written messily there. Breath caught in his windpipe when he read it: Lily-Annah Fry.

#  

Cradling her newborn in her arms, Suzannah paced the living room floor. Brendan was working as _sous chef_ in a family diner. It was the best job he could get, for now, but it was merely a stepping-stone to bigger things. She had told him so. To supplement their income, Suzannah had advertised tarot and palm readings in the local paper. Within that first week of moving she had booked ten clients. She informed each person upfront - not wanting to waste their time or their hopes - that she could only _interpret_ the findings of that person's future. She couldn't state a solid claim. She was done with claiming.

Unopened boxes were still stacked to the ceiling in the living room. Every day was a now-familiar loop, groundhog days, where she itched to leave the house yet wanted nothing more than to be with the daughter that kept her house-bound. She was getting used to midday TV soaps. Lily was never far from her thoughts. She found herself perpetually tired from night-time feeds. Her nipples were cracked and sore, but she didn't want to resort to using a bottle like a Hollywood Mom intent on keeping life uncluttered by a new arrival. She was uneasy bathing the baby; worried that Lily-Annah would slip from her soapy fingers and drown. She worried that Lily-Annah would get diaper rash, that Lily-Annah would grow _beyond_ her to become a wise, cool, detached teenager who knew everything and nothing - just as Suzannah had been.

For the moment her baby's hunger was satisfied, Lily-Annah's black hair tussled into shining, downy peaks. "Gramma's coming," Suzannah muttered to the sleeping bundle. "We gotta keep our wits about us, okay?"

Lily-Annah stirred awake and began to cry. One tiny arm flailed in midair.

"Oh, good one, Suz," she said aloud. She settled the infant upright on her shoulder and rubbed the little back, beginning to tread a circuit in the living room. Lily-Annah gradually quieted and fell asleep once more; her warm forehead nestled against her mother's throat.

Within the hour, Ester Fry pulled into the driveway after the drive from Santa Monica. Suzannah had agreed, without much heart, to the influx of Sisters from her mother's coven along with the presence of High Priest, Ken Geiger, for the Wiccaning to take place: the pagan equivalent of a Christening.

She believed. She _would_ believe and hold it all with open hands, without her mother knowing the cracks in-between. She smiled and passed the baby around the visitors, this issue from her body, this signal of being alive and living; while her own body harbored and provided, and begrudged, and wondered. Above all, it wondered.

Soon, the baby in a sling around her neck, Suzannah stood fixing hot drinks in the kitchen. Ester spent time cooing over the baby before saying what she had clearly planned to say. "I hear a lot of the Montessori's are booked two years in advance in Bakersfield."

Suzannah spooned sugar into mugs, poured milk, and kept Lily-Annah against her body: together under one heartbeat while she made it happen. "I have her booked already," she said.

Ester beamed. "There's a pagan Montessori on Kline Street, is that the one? Well, more New Age but they'll broaden their horizons with time, no doubt. It's a good place to start."

Suzannah balanced a mug in each hand and passed her mother. "She's booked at Mayfriar."

Ester fell in beside her. "I looked them up on the web! Mayfriar's just another one of those commercialized-"

"Ma, they're babies," Suzannah said, handing out mugs with a wan smile. "They don't know what they believe."

Ester held her tongue until her daughter returned to the kitchen to collect another round of mugs. "And do _you_ know what you believe?" she asked, taking hold of Suzannah's shoulders and making her face about. "I told you all along you've lost your way. You have! I've only been away from you a month-"

"-And counting," Suzannah said, smoothing Lily-Annah's hair. She gazed at the miniscule fingernails, tiny seashells on pink extensions. She finally eyed Ester. _My place was in your shadow..._

"We've been over this," she said.

"Not to my satisfaction we haven't!"

"Since when did I _owe_ you my beliefs? Do you know what this upbringing cost me? You don't have the faintest clue of the bullying; of-of the power I could wield to get revenge on other kids when I was just _too_ damn young to have that kind of ability. Ma, I'm turning twenty-nine in two days time. Why did we never celebrate my birthday?"

Ester bent close with her cold, militant voice. "Because _every_ day is your birthday. Because you are mine until the day your heart gives out. And, besides," she added with a toss of her curls, "I see nothing to celebrate in you right now."

Suzannah felt - and heard - her heart change. Ester continued in an undertone so that nobody could overhear. "I made you. I formed you. And this is what I get? Your ingratitude dis _-gusts_ me."

Tears welling, Suzannah said, "Lily-Annah will be whoever she wants to be. She'll learn to _wait_ to believe in something until she has her own identity and her own will to discover it. Things will be different with her and me."

She held her head high. "I like who I am," she croaked, "even if you don't, and that will just have to _not_ matter to me. You can't honestly look me in the eye and tell me you've never doubted your own faith. Why won't you just let me be human? This once?"

Ester rolled her eyes, seeming to have grown harder in the month of absence. "So, are you happy to go ahead with the Wiccaning or are we just wasting our time here?"

Back to the allegiance test...

Suzannah grubbed up a smile, arranging the silky hammock around Lily-Annah so that she could rest more comfortably. "Whatever makes you feel like you're making good use of _your_ time," she said, and she could see that it hurt her mother. _Teacher. Enemy_.

Ester gathered her haughtiness about herself and sniffed, not giving Suzannah another glance. She transferred her affection to the baby, almost visibly: a minus here and an addition there, as she smiled down on Lily-Annah. "Hey, baby girl, prettiest thing alive."

She headed out of the kitchen, commanding with a tip of her head, "Come."

Suzannah followed her mother into the living room. The room was full of faces and good intentions, some faces she'd grown up knowing and some new faces brimming with recently instilled knowledge. They welcomed the baby into the world and to the Universe. Suzannah participated in the ritual, knowing it by heart: knowing it could be an all-consuming passion and that it could all backfire irreparably.

Her eyes riveted to one section of the room, the recently installed bookshelf with its Wiccan guides and manuals and the thing her mother would most despise to see tucked into an obscure corner: the Gideon Bible from the Arizona Motel.

There had been no quickfire poison effect in her mind after reading it, no strand-by-strand deconstruction of her Wiccan lineage like her mother had prophesied. Life deconstructed me, instead. There were no warnings about that. Without doubt she would always bear the scars from her early brush with Christianity. Yet in her older years, the words 'Christianity' and 'God' had merged to form their own condemned building. It was a building fronted by self-erected signs that held a barbed wire certainly: Keep Out. Taboo. It made her realize all at once. Searches - for whatever reason - take bravery.

The Gideon Bible sat small and quiet, shouted down by the Wiccan material surrounding it on the shelf. Suzannah smiled to herself, though it was nothing too proud or too assured. But, she knew that it was more than _they_ had ever been open to try, and for that... she was the wiser.

#  

Curtis slid his meal tray down the chow hall line, nodding for packet potato. He had it walloped onto his plate. He found a seat with the usual group of white-skinned men. The inmates, themselves, had divided the chow-hall tables into strict race and affiliation groups. He didn't care either way and invested little time in building friendships, but his best bet for safety was to sit where he was expected to sit.

He dug into the potato. It tasted of puddles, but puddles with no reflection of the sky.

Refusing another counselling session with Matt, Curtis had explained to Doctor Methuselah that the therapy letter he'd sent to Lily had all but cured his back pain.

He didn't feel the need to argue further proofs for Atheism with Matt. He was an Atheist, simple as that. He believed that time, alone, would have the last say in his future and while he was uncertain if human beings could provide a sense of salvation for one another, he knew beyond doubt that Lily had been his.

He'd lived through her. He'd died through her.

Ending Joel's life had been the best that his love could do. He slept soundly at night, knowing he'd done this for Lily.

With an effort, he pulled the memory back to himself, a lingering memory of their first year of dating. It had been a year of sleep-ins and small talk and photo frames, the world being built around them in shades of a homemade hope...

They went to a passing gypsy fair and entered a house of mirrors, tumbling inside with warm, full-mouthed kisses. Lily draped her arms around his neck and she gazed at their reflected bodies, some fat and short, some tall and thin with trickery, and she said, "There are a thousand of you. I don't know which one to kiss first."

He'd laughed and they began an awkward, un-scripted dance. He had never pegged himself as someone who would let a girl change the way he did things. Being open with her held so little threat. He held Lily at the waist as their feet mimed two steps to the side, and one step back; their eyes on all the mirrors.

Lily peeled away and ran up to the nearest pane, pulling a face that warped like a badly made mask. Curtis grinned, looking on. And as he did so, he realized that there was only one way out of there. Running up to another pane Lily struck a pose like that of a model, hands on hips and one knee kinked, calling 'Hot dayam!' and laughing back at him, so clear-eyed and uncomplicated.

But he suddenly had to know, with no smile left, "Hey, which pane lets us out?"

Lily shrugged. "Don't remember."

All he knew was that doors kept secrets. It flashed through his head like unkind lightning bolts; Rory in class to learn Mathematics with Father Donovan while he learned torture instead: Gary receiving pleasure from a blonde in a sealed bathroom during the eighteenth birthday party. All he knew was that doors kept secrets.

Lily neared him with concern. "What's up?"

Curtis split the air with his hands. "Which one lets us out? I want to know."

Lily surveyed the room and eventually picked a panel. It swung open at her touch.

"There." Lily returned to him, cupping Curtis's face in her hands. "Happy?"

He tried to act like it'd been a joke as he stared down at her. "I hate doors," he said.

"Yeah? So, we're going to end up living in a tent? Like Bedouins?" She teased him to make him feel more at-ease. He knew it and she knew it, so it fell a little flat.

"Doesn't matter. I know where it is now," Curtis said, taking his girlfriend's chin in his fingertips. He bent in to kiss her. Lily pulled away and went to stand behind him. She covered Curtis's eyes with her palms.

"What are you doing?" he asked, blinded.

"Shh," she said, her hands directing him to walk a slow circle. "Go with it."

His hands covered Lily's in protest but she held fast, their palms forming a sandwich of skin, and they circled in two, slow-motion turns.

Finally she'd peeled her hands away, saying, "Where is it now?"

The room was all panels again. He'd heard the door click shut from the wind. He felt the intensity rising in his chest. Lily understood his vibe and she went to test the panels, eventually finding the correct panel to pry open. She removed her shoes and kept the door ajar with them, tracking back to him. Pulling Curtis's arms around her waist like a lasso, Lily rested in the crook of his neck. They stood in silence. After a moment, she whispered, "Hey, you know if there's a way in... there's always a way out."

Disruptive male voices were all around him. Curtis lowered his head in the dismal human dance, sopping up his meal with a piece of bread. Lily knew - that doors were everywhere. And doors meant that no matter where you were, there was always something waiting on the other side.



About the author:

I'm thirty-three years old and I live in beautiful New Zealand. Born to Christian parents, I spent the majority of my formative years being homeschooled and taking religious instruction. I broadened these interests by studying Philosophy at Massey University in 2005. I enjoy doing pottery and taking road-trips in my spare time.

This is my first novel.

Connect with me online:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/RVMartin

https://www.facebook.com/ruth.martin.92775

https://twitter.com/RuthMar00241340

http://rv2013.wordpress.com/

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