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was over.
     
    Jon was exhausted. He was only twenty-eight, but he wondered how many more Mother’s Days he could survive before they killed him. He had three more stepmothers to get through, despite the three meals distending his gut. But tea, an early dinner, and a late supper were all on the agenda before he could meet Tracie at midnight. Grimly, Jon climbed on his bike and pedaled off into the Seattle rain.

Chapter 4
    p. 39 Tracie raised her head, trying to see the clock. She could, but that didn’t help, as it clearly had been unplugged so that Phil could use the one overburdened outlet to plug in his guitar. No wonder he was always late.
    Phil’s apartment was a typical poet/musician’s hellhole. He shared the space with two other guys, and it seemed that none of the three of them had heard of power strips, extension cords, vacuums, or the advent of dish-washing liquid. Tracie closed her eyes, turned away from the squalor, and cuddled up against Phil’s warm side. She knew she had to get up, get dressed, and go meet Jon ‌ —as she did every Sunday night ‌ —but this felt so good. And today was Mother’s Day. A quick wave of self-pity washed over her. She told herself she only wanted a few more moments in the gray zone between sexual exhaustion and sleep. She dozed there for a while, then slept again, and when she next awoke, the streetlights had gone on and she knew it was getting late.
    She began to untangle herself from the wrinkled sheets, trying not to wake Phil. But as she stood up, Phil, only half-awake, grabbed at her with his long, long legs and pulled her back to the bed. “Come here, you,” he said, and kissed her. He smelled so good ‌ —like sleep and sex and p. 40 bread dough ‌ —and she responded; then her mouth guiltily pulled away. “I’ll be right back,” she promised, and Phil mumbled and turned over.
    Tracie crept out of bed, slipped into her clothes, and snuck out to get the Sunday paper. It was already quarter past nine! God! No wonder she was ravenous. She’d better pick up some coffee, eggs, and bread for toast. Then she thought of the state of Phil’s kitchen and gave up that idea. Maybe just a couple of cheese Danishes. She’d leave the cooking to Laura. Tracie felt in her jacket pocket for money. She’d only need a few dollars. Most importantly, she wanted to get the Sunday paper and see what the Mother’s Day article looked like in print.
    It was funny: She’d been working at the Times now for four years, but she still got a thrill seeing her byline. Maybe that’s what kept her a journalist. She knew she could probably earn a lot more money hiring on as a technical writer at Micro/Con or any of the other high-tech companies in Seattle. But she didn’t have an interest in writing manuals or ad copy. There was something magical to her about the immediacy of newspaper work. The gratification of working on an article and seeing it ‌ —with her name at the top ‌ —just a day or two later kept her hooked.
    She walked to the deli closest to Phil’s place. It wasn’t clean, and the food wasn’t good, but, as they said about Everest, it was there. Across the door was a hand-lettered sign that p. 41 said HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY. She ordered a couple of coffees, bought a pint of Tropicana juice, but couldn’t manage to sink to the level of the stale-looking pastries in the smudged case in front of her. She just went for a paper and called it a day. Then, even before she could leave the store, she had to look at the feature. She opened to her section. It wasn’t on the front page. She began to look through it. And kept looking. Not on page two or three. Not even on the following two. Then she found it. On the bottom of six. Truncated. Overedited. Sliced and diced. Trepanned. The thing had been cut up and then stitched back together as badly as Frankenstein’s monster. She actually felt sick to her stomach. Goddamn it! Tracie scanned it again. It couldn’t be as