When I looked back-finally, when I got sober-I thought, Of course. It was the sixties, I was barely an adult; I'd been molested and abused and I thought it was my fault. No wonder I lost myself so completely to drugs. I became like a piece of string on some cold-water river, just bobbing along. High all the time.

Then one night, when it was so hot I couldn't get comfortable in my sleeping bag, I dreamed about my father. In my nightmare he was alive and coming for you. Once the nightmare descended into my life, nothing could get rid of it. No drugs or sex or meditation. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. I told this guy-Pooh Bear, we called him-that I would blow him all the way to Seattle if he'd take me home. I gave him the address. The next thing I knew, there were five of us in an old VW bus, banging our way north, singing along to the Doors in a cloud of smoke. We camped out along the way, made pot brownies in a cast-iron skillet over an open fire, and dropped acid.

My nightmares turned uglier and more intense. I started seeing Rafe in the daylight, too, started thinking his ghost was following me. I heard his voice calling me a tramp and a terrible mother. I cried in my sleep all the time.

And then one day I woke up, still high, and found that we were parked in front of my mother's house. The bus was half on the street and half on the sidewalk. I don't think any of us remember parking. I climbed over the carpeted floor and jumped out of the van and onto the street. I knew I looked bad and smelled bad, but what could I do?

I stumbled across the street and went into the house.

You were right there at the kitchen table, playing with a spoon, when I opened the screen door and went inside. Somewhere upstairs, a bell tinkled.

That's Grandpa, you said, and I felt rage explode inside of me. How could he be alive? And what had he done to you?

I went up the stairs, banging into the walls, screaming for my mother. She was in her bedroom, with my father, who looked like a cadaver in a twin bed. His face was slack, gray; drool slid down his chin.

He's alive? I screamed.

Paralyzed, she said, getting to her feet.

I wanted to tell my mother I was taking you; I wanted to see the pain in her eyes. But I was so crazy, I couldn't think straight. I ran downstairs and I scooped you into my arms.

My mother ran down behind me. He's paralyzed, Dorothy Jean. I told the police he had a stroke. I swear. You're safe. No one knows you pushed him. You can stay.

Can your grandpa move? I asked you.

You shook your head and popped your thumb in your mouth.

Still. I had you in my arms and I couldn't let you go. I imagined redemption for myself, a new beginning for us. I imagined a life with picket fences and bikes with training wheels and Campfire Girl meetings.

So I took you.

And nearly killed you by letting you eat a brownie filled with marijuana.

It wasn't even my idea to take you to the hospital when you started flipping out. It was Pooh Bear's.

I don't know, Dot. That's, like, way too much weed for a kid. She looks ... green.

I carried you into the emergency room and said you'd gotten into the neighbor's stash. No one believed me.

It wasn't until later, when you were asleep, that I sneaked back in and pinned your name on your shirt with my mother's phone number. It was all I could think of to do. I got it finally: I didn't deserve you.

I kissed you before I left.

I bet you don't remember any of this. I hope you don't.

After that, I fell. Time became as elastic as rubber for me. Pot and 'ludes dulled my mind and stripped me of my ability to care about anything. I spent the next six years in communes and on painted-up school buses and hitchhiking by the side of the road. Mostly I was too high to even know where I was. I made it to San Francisco. The epicenter. Sex. Drugs. Rock 'n' roll. Jimi at the Fillmore. Joan and Bob at the Avalon. I don't remember anything much ... until one day in 1970, when I looked out the van's dirty window on the way to a peace rally and saw the Space Needle.

I didn't even know we'd left California. I yelled out, Wait! My kid lives near here.

When we parked in front of my mother's house, I knew I shouldn't get out of the car. You were better off without me, but I was too high to care.

I stumbled out of the van and pot smoke tumbled out with me, circling me, protecting me. I went up to the front door and knocked hard. Then I tried to stand still. The effort was such a failure that I couldn't help laughing. I was so stoned, I-

September 3, 2010

6:15 P.M.

Beeeeep ...

The noise sliced through Dorothy's memories, brought her back to the present. She'd been so deep in her story that it took her a moment to clear her head. An alarm was sounding.

She lurched to her feet.

"Help!" she screamed. "Someone get in here! Please. I think her heart is stopping. Please! Now! Someone save my daughter!"

The brightness around me is gorgeous; like lying inside of a star. Beside me, I hear Katie breathing. Lavender scents the night air. "She's there ... here," I say, awed, by the very idea that my mother would come to see me.

I am listening to her voice, trying to make sense of her words. There's something about a picture, and a word-querida-that doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense, actually. It's sounds and pauses jumbled together. A voice that is both forgotten and etched into my very soul.

Then I hear something else. A noise that doesn't belong in this beautiful place. A beep.

No, a drone. An airplane high in the sky ... or a mosquito buzzing by my ear.

I hear a scuffing sound. People walking on thick-soled shoes. A door clicking shut.

But there is no door. Is there?

Maybe.

An alarm goes off, blaring.

"Katie?"

I look sideways and see that I am alone. I shiver with an unexpected cold. What's wrong? Something is changing ...

I concentrate hard, will myself to see where I really am-I know I'm in that hospital room, hooked up to life support. A grid engraves itself into existence above me. Acoustical tiles. A white ceiling, pocked with gray pinholes. Rough. Like a pumice stone or old concrete.

And suddenly I'm back in my body. I'm in a narrow bed, with metal railings that undulate like eels, flashing silver as they move. I see my mother beside me. She is screaming something about her daughter-me-and then she is stumbling away. Nurses and doctors rush in and push her aside.

The machines go silent all at once and look expectantly at me, their anthropomorphic forms straightening. They whisper among themselves, but I can't make out their words. A green line moves across a black, square face, smiling and frowning, beeping. Beside me, something whooshes and thunks.

Pain explodes in my chest, coming so fast I don't even have time to yell for Kate.