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crashing another way, banging into each other like they’ve got nothing better to do.
    Pretty soon there’s a guy on the corner, waving his arms, hollering at an invisible audience. We sit at a red light and I watch him, thinking about the Hank or the not-Hank in the airport, wonder if seeing Hank means I’m crazy or if it means he’s come for me already. If it was a not-Hank and I keep seeing him, keep hearing the bees, I might end up on a corner someday, waving my arms, talking to invisible people. Or staring into space, not moving, not being. Or maybe even end up like Hank, raging at a gun when it runs out of bullets. His coming that night, I think it did something to make me empty and crazy—like him.
    We’re on Magnolia Bridge and Margie’s asking me if I remember it from last time. I do, but I say I don’t so she’ll point out the sites and I don’t have to talk. She’s explaining how all the close-together boats in the water below us is a yacht club, how people sail on the weekends, even when it rains.
    “Don’t wait for the sun to come out in Seattle, Lily, or you’ll never leave the house.” She smiles, points to downtown, to the yacht club, to a park with a lot of foggy trees. “Plenty to do here, but we’ll take it slow, okay?”
    Pretty soon we stop in front of Margie’s apartment building. I remember the patio from last summer, sitting out there in the dark watching downtown and the Space Needle light up. Queen Anne—a fancy neighborhood. There’s no white steam into blue sky, no stink, no threadbare couches with pots of gold in the cushions.
    It’s not long before Margie’s unlocking her front door. “What did you think about that big house next door? Pretty elaborate, right?”
    I look at Margie, feel my eyebrows wrinkle up. I don’t remember the house. “I didn’t notice,” I say.
    Margie looks sad, then nods, then shows me my room.
    My new room is where Mom and I stayed. We shared the big bed, talked for hours and planned our new life. I feel a whooshing inside, like my stomach’s decided to leave my body. I stand in the doorway, frozen, but not gone.
    Margie thinks I’m disappointed. “We’ll get you your own stuff soon.”
    “No need. This is fine.” The room is still done up in blues and whites like I remember. It’s sterile. It’s fine.
    “No. We’ll go shopping when we’re both feeling a little better. I’ll donate all this stuff. It’s old anyway.”
    “Okay.”
    “Get settled and I’ll check on you in a bit. I need to make a quick call.”
    Margie disappears and I go to the bed, run my fingers along the bedspread. Mom sat here while I sat on the floor. She braided my hair, said sweet things.
    “You have such beautiful hair, Lilybeans. We don ’ t do this enough. Girlie stuff. We ’ ll do more now, I promise.”
    I didn’t know for sure we were leaving Hank yet. I didn’t know, but I sometimes hoped. I sit on the floor now, make a wish to feel her fingers again, want to hear her sweet words, wish I could go back. The ache and the hollow start up, the burning behind my eyes.
    I look around the bedroom for a distraction. A canvas bag with all my clothes sits over on the chair that matches the desk in here. It’s time to unpack.
    I open the bag. A cloud of dog food has followed me all the way to Seattle. I wander through the apartment, holding a T-shirt out in front of me—evidence to show Margie why I need to do laundry.
    “Yes, we’re both home. She’s… quiet.” Margie’s talking on the phone, pacing the living room, her back to me, moving from one bookcase to the next. This living room was my favorite place when we visited. All four walls are stacked high with her paperbacks, first editions and falling-apart hardbacks. It’s a miniature library.
    The boxes are new, I think: a copper box big enough to hold one of those old-timey dictionaries before you could look up words online; silver boxes so small you could balance one on the end of a finger; a