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mother’s data on the display.
    “Crap.” Cilla flipped the phone open. “What’s wrong?”
    “Is that any way to answer the phone? You don’t bother to say hello?”
    “Hello, Mom. What’s wrong?”
    “I’m not happy with you, Cilla.”
    What else is new? Cilla thought. And you’re drunk or stoned. Ditto. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, especially at three-thirty in the morning, East Coast time. Which is where I am, remember?”
    “I know where you are.” Bedelia’s voice sharpened even as it slurred. “I know damn well. You’re in my mother’s house, which you tricked me into giving you. I want it back.”
    “I’m in my grandmother’s house, which you sold to me. And you can’t have it back. Where’s Mario?” she asked, referring to her mother’s current husband.
    “This has nothing to do with Mario. This is between you and me. We’re all that’s left of her! You know very well you caught me in a weak moment. You took advantage of my vulnerability and my pain. I want you to come back immediately and tear up the transfer papers or whatever they are.”
    “And you’ll tear up the cashier’s check for the purchase price?”
    There was a long, brittle silence during which Cilla lay back down and yawned.
    “You’re cold and ungrateful.”
    The thin sheen of tears on the words was much too calculated, and too usual, to get a rise. “Yes, I am.”
    “After everything I did for you, all the sacrifices I made, all of which you tossed away. Now, instead of you willing to pay me back for all the years I put you first, you’re tossing money in my face.”
    “You could look at it that way. I’m keeping the farm. And don’t, please don’t, waste my time or your own trying to convince either of us this place matters to you. I’m in it, I’ve seen just how much you care about it.”
    “She was my mother!”
    “Yeah, and you’re mine. Those are the crosses we have to bear.”
    Cilla heard the crash, and pictured the glass holding her mother’s preferred nighttime Ketel One on the rocks hitting the nearest wall. Then the weeping began. “How can you say such a horrible thing to me!”
    Lying on her back, Cilla swung her arm over her eyes and let the ranting, the sobbing play out. “You should go to bed, Mom. You shouldn’t make these calls when you’ve been drinking.”
    “A lot you care. Maybe I’ll do what she did. Maybe I’ll just end it.”
    “Don’t say that. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Possibly. “You need to get a good night’s sleep. You’ve got your show to plan.”
    “Everyone wants me to be her.”
    “No, they don’t.” Mostly, that’s just you. “Go on to bed now, Mom.”
    “Mario. I want Mario.”
    “Go on to bed. I’ll take care of it. He’ll be there. Promise me you’ll go up to bed.”
    “All right, all right. I don’t want to talk to you anyway.”
    When the phone clicked in her ear, Cilla lay as she was a moment. The whining snub at the end signaled that Dilly was done, would go to bed or simply lie down on the handiest surface and pass out. But they’d passed through the danger zone.
    Cilla pushed the speed-dial button she’d designated as Number Five. “Mario,” she said when he answered. “Where are you?”
    It took less than a minute to recap the situation, so she cut off Mario’s distress and hung up. Cilla had no doubt he’d rush home and provide Dilly with the sympathy, the attention and the comfort she wanted.
    Wide awake and irritated, she climbed out of her sleeping bag. Carting her flashlight, she used the bathroom, then trudged downstairs for a fresh bottle of water. Before going back to the kitchen, she opened the front door and stepped out onto the short section of porch that remained.
    All the pretty sparkling lights were gone now, she noted, and the hills were utterly, utterly dark. Even with the thin scatter of stars piercing through the clouds overhead, she thought it was like stepping into a tomb. Black and silent