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up on a ranch outside of Galisteo, New Mexico. Both our folks were drunks. My mother was the ranch cook, good in the kitchen but she didn’t give a hoot about mothering. My father was the foreman and when he got plastered, he came into our bedroom and did ugly stuff to me and my sister—I don’t need to go into details, do I?”
    “Not unless you want to.”
    “I
don’t
want to. It affected my sister and me differently. She turned wild and chased men and drank and took every drug she could get her hands on. She’s gone, now, motorcycle crash.” Short, deep breath. “I became a Goody Two-shoes. The two of us weren’t very close. As it turned out, I have no interest in men. None. Or women, in case you’re curious.”
    “I’m always curious, but that hadn’t occurred to me.”
    “No?” she said. “Some folks think I’m pretty butch.”
    I said nothing.
    “Also, seeing as how Richard—Dr. Silverman—was the one who referred me and how people jump to conclusions, I could understand you thinking I was gay.”
    “I work hard at not jumping to conclusions.”
    “It wouldn’t bother me if I was gay, but I’m not. I have no interest in anybody’s anything below the waist. If you need a label, how about asexual? That make me crazy in your book?”
    “Nope.”
    Another partial smile. “You’re probably just saying that because you want to develop whatchamacallit rapport.”
    I said, “You’re not interested in sex. That’s your prerogative. So far I’ve heard nothing crazy.”
    “Society thinks it’s weird.”
    “Then we won’t let Society into the office.”
    She smiled. “Moving on: My sister—Lydia, she went by Liddie—couldn’t keep her pants on. Maybe God played tricks, huh? Two girls dividing up one sex drive?”
    “Hers on Monday, yours on Tuesday but she got greedy?”
    She laughed. “Sense of humor’s important in your business.”
    “Your business, too.”
    “You know much about my job?”
    “Dr. Silverman told me you’re the best nurse he’s ever worked with.”
    “The man exaggerates,” she said, but her eyes sparkled. “Okay, maybe just a slight exaggeration, ’cause off the bat I can’t think of anyone better. Last night we had a guy, a gardener, mangled both hands in a lawn mower. Too much empathy and you find yourself depressed all the time…speaking of bad stuff, plenty happened to my sister, but nothing she didn’t earn. She died on back of a Harley on the way to a big bike meet in South Dakota. No helmet, same for the genius driving. He took a turn wrong, they went flying off the road.”
    “Sorry to hear about that.”
    She squinted. “I cried some but—and this is going to sound cold—the way Liddie lived it was a miracle it didn’t happen sooner. Anyway, the gist of all this is to explain how I came to have Tanya. She’s Liddie’s biologically but one day when she was three, Liddie decided she didn’t want her anymore and dumped her on my doorstep. Literally, middle of the night, I hear the doorbell, go out, find Tanya clutching a stuffed toy, some killer whale souvenir she got in Alaska. Liddie’s parked in a hotwheels at the curb and when I go to talk to her, the car peels out. That was four years ago and I never heard from her again, didn’t even get the death notice until a year after the accident because Liddie was carrying fake I.D., it took the highway cops awhile to figure out who she was.”
    “How did Tanya react?”
    “She cried for a few days, then she stopped. She’d ask about Liddie from time to time but nothing chronic. My answer was always Mommy loved her, had left her with me ’cause I could take better care of her. I bought a book on explaining death to kids, used the parts that made sense and discarded the parts that didn’t. Overall, Tanya seemed to accept it pretty well. Asked the right questions. Then she went about her business. I kept telling her Mommy loved her, would always love her. After maybe the gazillionth time I