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to say “convenience store.” She learned to walk cruising the shelves in the candy aisle.
    If I’d had any idea that the scrubby grass in the front yard of that old crummy rental house would be the last chance I had at a real lawn, I would have put my foot down about moving here to begin with.
    I finger the edges of Robert’s letter. Maybe it wasn’t my last chance after all.
    I slip the letter back in my pocket when the jingle bells on the front door ring. It’s Sally. Today she’s changed wigs, wearing a bright red eighties-era Reba McEntire number.
    “Hey, doll,” she croaks. “What’s shaking?”
    A headache has begun to grind away behind my eyes, but I only now notice it, with Sally’s arrival. I fish under the counter for my bottle of Excedrin.
    “Nothing, Sal. Need some smokes?”
    “Nope, just loaded up at the grocery store. Just feeling like some company.”
    Business seems slow for a bright Saturday, when people ought to be coming in for their chips and drinks and ice cream treats. So I don’t argue when Sally pulls out some cards and starts shuffling.
    She deals seven cards each for gin rummy and I keep track of our scores on the tail end of a nearly-used-up receipt tape roll. We break for the occasional customer, and then we get a rush of sorts, five people in the store at once, stocking for a party apparently, as they’ve got me fetching liquor bottles by the armful.
    I hope they’re not driving after this party of theirs.
    When I turn back to her, Sally is staring so hard at her cards, she might be trying to set them on fire with her eyes.
    “Your turn, Sal. Sorry that took so long. Can’t stand in the way of a good Saturday drunk.”
    She doesn’t respond and continues staring.
    “Sal? You okay?”
    “Huh,” she replies, still staring. “It’s the damnedest thing. I kind of forgot what I’m doing.”
    “We’re playing cards, goofy. Did you forget what cards you were trying to collect? You’ve been picking up every three, and lots of diamonds, too.”
    Sally drops the cards right out of her hands, spilling them like drinks off a tray. She pats herself and the counter, frantically. “Where are my keys? I just remembered, I’ve gotta go, sister dear. Gotta . . . I’ve gotta go. Catch you on the flip side.”
    She snatches her keys and is around the counter with surprising quickness.
    “Sally? What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing, doll,” she calls out with a wave and a jaunty wink through the hairs of her outrageous wig. “Just heading home, is all. See ya.”
    I bend down to pick up the cards, and that’s when I see that she had plenty of good cards in her hand. In fact, she had enough to lay them all down and crow “Gin!” which normally Sally loves to do, cackling like a maniac as if nothing were ever so fine.
    I straighten up to peer out the door and watch her elderly gray Chevette cough and belch its way past the store and up Shoreline Drive.
    Her trailer is in the other direction.

Chapter 9
    Amy
    “I ’m walking on sunshine!” sings Katrina and the Waves from my clock radio. I slap the radio until it stops, and I think I’ve knocked it to the floor, which is just as well.
    “Paul, honey? I need some water.”
    I’ve never licked mildewed bathroom tiles, but it’s the best description I can think of for the taste in my mouth.
    He doesn’t respond, and with great reluctance I open my eyes into the stinging sunshine of my bedroom. The warm weight on my bed is Frodo, my chocolate Lab. The dog stirs lightly, then slurps at my nose. I put my hand over my eyes and try to remember the drive home. About the last thing I can clearly recall is Paul setting me in the car, and then . . .
    Oh, crap. I should offer to get his car detailed.
    I roll back away from the dog and his Alpo breath—normally I crate him at night; he must think this is quite a luxury, sleeping up here—and that’s when I see the glass of water with a bendy straw, and a note.
Had to stop into the office