Cell phone pressed to her ear, Lena peers through a crack in the curtains. Her mother sits at the table, a cup in front of her and a book in her hand. The television set is on, but Lena can't hear it, and she guesses the volume is probably muted. Sometimes, Lulu keeps the TV on for the company the images, not the sound, offer. "I'm outside the back door, Lulu. Open up."

Lulu flips back the flowery curtain from the kitchen door window before opening it. Her hair is covered with a blue slumber bonnet, her cheeks and lips are bare, her housedress is faded and worn at the elbows. The kitchen sink is full of dishes and pots. At the sink, Lena runs water into the rubberized dishpan. She searches under the cabinet for dishwashing soap hidden between a.s.sorted half-full bottles of cleansers and squeezes the blue liquid over the dishes.

The running hot water steams up the window above the sink while she washes the dishes and rinses them one by one. Lulu picks up a dishtowel and dries the plates and bowls and places them on the counter instead of onto their shelves because she likes them air-dry not just towel-dry. "Randall served me with divorce papers, and I've decided to move out." Lena says matter-of-factly, surprised at how even her voice is.

"Oh, my G.o.d, look what you've gone and done. I told you not to bother Randall with your problems." The soft scent of her dusky perfume floats between mother and daughter. Lulu backs into the kitchen table and lowers herself into her chair. "You never listen, do you, Lena?"

"Oh, Lulu... I feel bad enough as it is." Lena scans the kitchen. It is messier than normal: five soda cans and three empty gallon water containers sit, along with newspapers, beside the refrigerator. She pulls a folded grocery bag from underneath the sink, snaps it open, then drops the cans, papers, and containers into the bag.

"You better keep yourself in that house. Don't let him take it away from you."

What, she thinks, is the point of telling Lulu about Randall's manipulative offer? "I'll feel better in neutral territory."

"I hope you put some money away." Lulu purses her lips and sips from a cup she has had since Lena and Bobbie were little girls.

"I'll sell my car if I have to." Lena pulls the broom and the dustpan from the tall cabinet beside the stove and begins to sweep the floor in hurried, choppy strokes. "I'm sure he has to pay me alimony or something..."

"Even I I kept a secret stash, baby girl." kept a secret stash, baby girl."

Whenever Lena joked that Lulu encouraged her to hide a little something on the side, Randall chortled and told Lena that if she was, he hoped it was a lot of something because, with her expensive tastes, there was no way a little would ever do.

"These things don't happen in my family." The volume rises suddenly on the TV as if Lulu senses her daughter's breakup can be masked by the sound.

Standing on the other side of the kitchen, Lena thinks of at least two of her aunts and a cousin who should let it happen to them. Divorce or separation, that is. She sweeps the dust and dirt into the dustpan and empties it into the trash. Lulu points at a corner underneath the cabinet, and Lena sweeps there as well.

"I'm sure Randall still wants you, Lena. He's a good man. He just works too much." Lulu fumbles with the slumber cap and pushes the lacy edges behind her ears. "What can you do without him? How will you take care of yourself?"

"I don't know why I'm here. I didn't want you to have a heart attack if I told you over the phone." Lena shoves the broom and dustpan back into the little closet and reminds herself to buy Lulu one of those handheld vacuums for spot-dusting and spills. Lulu believes in forever and so did Lena until almost twenty-four hours ago. Tina believed in herself, and Lena has to hold on, too, or she will wilt like one of Lulu's short-blooming azaleas. She steps past Lulu to the back door and pulls it wide open, letting a chilly breeze into the overheated house.

Lulu hobbles to Lena and yanks at the elbow of her sweatshirt just like Camille and Kendrick did when they were kids and wanted her full attention. "Your Aunt f.a.n.n.y left your Uncle Johnny two or three times before he finally straightened up. They made it through forty years of marriage before she died." A rare stern look crosses Lulu's face, the kind that would have stopped Lena in her tracks if she were thirty years younger. "Get yourself together, and don't leave that house. Make Randall take you back before he finds another woman to take your place."

Chapter 16.

Time to do it. Time to pick up the phone and call that stupid Randall. She tried to erase him from her thoughts during the purgatory of hours since she signed her lease. When Lena picked up his shirts-wishing she had the guts to burn them-she lied to the two chatty proprietors behind the counter that she would no longer bring in Randall's shirts because they were relocating to another state. The state of no-longer-married. Randall's absence is an ache that deepens when she least expects: while she balances the checkbook, completes change of address forms, changes the bed linens.

Lena lights the candles on the corner of her desk. Music, music, music will help. She scrolls through 173 Tina Turner songs on her MP3 player and stops wherever there is inspiration. She searches for the tunes she imagines Tina, onstage, strutting her stuff to and dials.

"Randall. This is Lena." She knows he knows who it is. She needs to distance herself from him this way. This is business. "I leased an apartment. I'm moving out."

"My offer is reasonable. I gave you enough time to evaluate it."

"Well, it's this way," Lena mutters Randall's prayer. A false cough covers her unsteadiness. She doesn't want Randall to know how off balance she is. "I'm thinking there might be more to it than you've let on."

"Think what you want, but you'd better get a job. I won't pay for an apartment when you should stay in the house."

"Oh, but you will will pay for one for yourself? I have that right?" Had she planned better Lena would have taken money out of the bank-no, taken money out of the household funds, ignored monthly bills; if needed, hidden a ton of money so that she wouldn't have to deal with Randall. pay for one for yourself? I have that right?" Had she planned better Lena would have taken money out of the bank-no, taken money out of the household funds, ignored monthly bills; if needed, hidden a ton of money so that she wouldn't have to deal with Randall.

"Stay in the house, Lena. Don't make it any harder on Kendrick and Camille than it already is."

If the blame-game gauntlet were something she could see, touch, or feel, it would be coming at her hard and heavy like a brick through a gla.s.s window of this lovely house; she would take it and throw it back. "It already is, Randall, and that's not all my fault." Breathing brings Lena back to her business mind-set. One. Two. Three. "I have room for them, and I'll make sure they understand that wherever I am is home. You make sure there's money in the bank."

Like a dancer, Lena moves around the kitchen at a frenzied pace grabbing plates, silverware, and napkins, ignoring the flush of perspiration across her forehead. The table is set as it was for the last meal Lena prepared now more than two weeks ago. That day marked an end. Tonight has to be peaceful. A time to savor and enjoy.

The back door opens with Kendrick's familiar entrance; a couple of inches at first, as if he needs to peek in, then a full swing. His profile is trim and still borders on skinny. He is not close to his normal weight, though his arms look muscular through the long sleeves of his shirt. His brown-red complexion is finally clear and free of the acne brought about by drugs or his final bout with adolescence.

"Wa.s.sup, Moms?" Kendrick's greeting is a gift. Conversations over the past few days have been brief, as if he has been hiding his life from her. Lena leans against Kendrick's chest and rests her head against the flat ridge of his sternum. His backpack makes a soft thud when he lowers it to the floor. "Smells good in here. Camille," he shouts, pulling away from Lena to sit at the table. "Get your b.u.t.t down here!"

Any other day, Lena would have fussed over what she considers impolite shouting. Camille's reply is equally loud. Their voices are welcome: a call and response, a kind of jazz breaking the silence that has permeated the house since the separation.

"I emailed my scholarship paperwork. They renewed starting fall semester."

"Yea, Kendrick! I knew you could do it. We should celebrate."

"We're celebrating?" Camille distracts Kendrick from the details Lena wants to hear. Sister slaps brother's back. Kendrick raps Camille's shoulder, and she yelps with fake pain at what she describes as a hard knuckle-hit, not brotherly affection. They are their old selves: kids who know they are loved. Lena crosses her heart, thankful for this one second that makes her world seem like nothing has changed.

The house feels warmer with their banter; it feels like home. They eat and gossip about friends, as if Lena is not within earshot, while she dishes hearty portions of food onto their plates. Tonight, she feels like an observer. She leans against the upholstered bench, picking at the cherry tomatoes in the salad, nibbling on the crunchy corners of the macaroni-and-cheese ca.s.serole, hearing without listening until they bring up the subject of their father. Kendrick went with Randall to look at condominiums in San Francisco. He's pushing for the unit with eighteen-foot ceilings, a view of the East Bay, and bedrooms for him and Camille complete with flat-panel televisions.

Because the sound of their laughter is so sweet, because she learned from that last meal with Randall, Lena holds her tongue. She wants to shout from the ceiling that their father is manipulating them, but she waits until Kendrick's and Camille's plates are empty and they seem to have run out of friends and TV reality shows to talk about. "I have something to tell you."

This same phrase was once a signal for good news or good times: anything from going to Lulu's to flying kites near the estuary or taking a trip to a warm place where the whole family could romp in the ocean. Kendrick's smile turns somber. Camille's knees shake underneath the table; a new habit. Their expressions ask the same question: what is our crazy mother up to now? Or worse: can't we pretend that everything is the same for a while longer?

"I love both of you, and I want you to be a part of this different life I'm beginning. I rented an apartment near the lake. It's small, and there aren't any fancy TVs, but there's a bedroom for each of you."

"I knew it. I knew it when I saw the food. This is bulls.h.i.t." Kendrick's voice cracks like it used to when it first began to deepen.

"Your timing sucks." Camille's dimples disappear, just as tears begin to fall down her cheeks.

"Why is it always about you, Mom? You could've waited until later. We were having a good time."

What does a mother do when she is responsible for her children's tears? When their hearts are broken, when the decision to save herself is as hurtful for them as it is for her? The urge, the need to grab both of her children and shake sense into their heads, is strong. The closest she can get is their hands-one hand on each of theirs, and she holds them in a tight grip so they cannot pull away. "How can you in one breath be so happy for your father's move and criticize me in the next for doing the same thing?"

Now their words fly like arrows all aimed at her so fast and hard that Lena ducks at the imaginary points coming her way.

"You're our mother." Kendrick wrenches his hand from Lena's grasp and rises from the table. "I can't believe you, Mom. You've f.u.c.ked everything up for all of us."

"You're supposed to take care of us, take care of Dad, take care of our house. What's the matter with you, Mommy? I hate you."

Camille's best friend's mother called days ago. After apologizing for being the one to break the news, the woman told Lena that Camille had posted bitter poetry that blamed Lena for the separation on a teen blog. Posted what the best friend's mother would only say used words no mother would want her child to write in the same sentence with her name: selfish, hate, dead, f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h. selfish, hate, dead, f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h.

"Trust me. Please." Now Lena's legs, too, shake beneath the table. How can a child understand the need for a mother to make it on her own? She pushes her hand against her eyes, knowing that tears will accomplish nothing. "Kendrick, you're settled for the summer, but I want you with me, at least some of the time, before you go back to Chicago. Camille, I'd like you to stay with me."

"You're trying to take away everything Dad has worked for," Kendrick says.

The words, Lena knows, are not his. The hard look on his face, a copy of his father's, clearly indicates he has more to say. Her left eyebrow arcs at his nerve, and he backs off. "I don't know what your father says, but shame on him for it. I don't want the two of you to be involved."

"At least Dad tells us what's going on," Camille says.

Her raised finger stops Camille from adding anything more. "Don't let him brainwash you. Kendrick, you may have a wife someday, and one day, Camille, you may be be a wife in this very same position. So, check your att.i.tudes about women who choose family over career." a wife in this very same position. So, check your att.i.tudes about women who choose family over career."

"Well, what about Kimchee? Do I have to decide who I'm going to live with right now?"

"No, sweetie. Yes, Kimchee can come, too." She extends her hand to Camille's cheek, and Camille shoves it away. "I hope one day you'll both understand."

"Summer school starts in three weeks." Kendrick stands and hugs Camille. There are no tears in his eyes, but the strain of his parents' decision is back. "I'm staying with Dad until then."

"I love you. Don't forget that." Lena promises herself that whatever comes next in her life will show them this pain-hers and theirs-has been worth it.

"If you loved us, you wouldn't do this to us," Camille says; tears stream down her face. "Or to Dad."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.... If I could make it hurt less, for all of us, I would."

"Then I'm going to stay with Dad, too. You kicked him out of the house. He goes to all of the trouble of looking for a new place, and now you're leaving? It's not fair."

When Lena went online and read Camille's poetry, the words, their meaning, were clear but seemingly not directed at her. Now hearing her children's words and the force of their anger is hard to take, but the sentiments were easier to handle delivered from the protective distance of cybers.p.a.ce.

Chapter 17.

On this fourteenth day since that rainy night, Lena awakens to the music of her neighborhood: children shriek through a game of tag, a lone bird chirps; a sprinkler head sputters, a gardener's blower buzzes. It's been a long time since she's paid attention to these early morning noises, and now her ears perk up because she is listening to them for the last time.

Pulling on jeans and a sweater in the haphazard fashion that is now her style, she wanders toward Kendrick's and Camille's rooms to crack their doors open and check their breathing, as if they were still toddlers, underneath their muddled covers. She stops in the middle of the hallway. Kendrick and Camille are not home. They left last night with barely a smile or a tilted eyebrow or a mischievous wink and headed to wherever Randall lives these days.

Outside, gears grind in the driveway. This truck announces their separation to the neighbors. Lena storms down the stairs and opens the front door. Two burly men with huge moving pads slung across their shoulders ask where she wants to begin. She looks back at them and waits for them to answer their own question.

Their first home was a mishmash of her furniture and Randall's bachelor tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. Lena decorated this house on her own. There were days spent in cold, dusty warehouses to find pristine bathroom tiles; she scoured through racks of granite slabs, as long as they were wide, in search of the right one for the kitchen. She hunted through the crowded aisles of the Everyman's Bazaar for antiques and sterling silver whatnots. The veneer plastered walls, the coffee table, the dining room table, and several handcrafted lamps are her designs. The corners filled with un.o.btrusive objects from their travels. Her mark is on everything.

The movers ask again, quieter this time. Lena points out what she wants: half of the pots and pans, the mixer, the toaster, the couch, the coffee table and the photography books on top of it, the jade lion from Hong Kong, the red Chinese armoire, the Persian rugs, the fine china with cobalt blue bands, silverware, picture alb.u.ms, all of her clothes. The art she loves and her photographs.

With a final glance in the dresser's mirror, Lena examines the gray strands scattered in her reddish brown hair, the puffs that have replaced the smooth skin under her eyes. She points to the dresser, but not the matching bed where Kendrick and Camille were conceived, where she and Randall swore to be together till death did them part, where they made love, ate popcorn and ice cream, slept in each other's arms. The thought of sleeping in that bed alone, though she has many times over the years, always eager for Randall's return, is enough to make her double over in pain.

No. The bed holds too many memories. The last time she and Randall made love, really made love-not just gotten off because he needed to-must have been months before he left on this last trip. She gasped and held her breath, while he moved in and out, out and in. He called her name, and she called his from the back of her throat in a moan she can hear right now. She cannot bear the thought of him making love to another woman in that same s.p.a.ce.

At last, the movers signal to Lena that they are done. She wanders around the house. In the hallway, faded squares outline the rectangles of pictures that once decorated those walls: the concentration on Kendrick's face during his first piano concert, Camille's first recital, Kendrick and Camille at Disneyland, Lena and Randall on their honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta. Short hair, long hair, mustache, no mustache; infants, toddlers, teens. The story of their lives is in those pictures. She beckons to the only trim mover of the crew and points to one of the whole family: a black-and-white photograph, Randall's arm around her shoulder, she leaning into his, Kendrick and Camille seated in front of them. All dressed in jeans and turtleneck sweaters. Christmas 1999. The photographer told them they looked perfect enough to model, perfect enough to be the all-American family, and he'd snapped their picture as they laughed.

Lena is not picture-perfect today. Has not been in a long time. Cannot get back into the groove of designer clothes and perfectly coiffed hair. Through her loose top, the shoulders of her five-eight frame have not slumped, but she feels bent over and aged. Feels like punching herself, even though the fingers of her right hand do not fully bend, shaving her eyebrows, eating herself into obesity. Punishment for what she believes is failure. Her failure.

She works her way through the house past reminders of Randall: Sports Ill.u.s.trated, Fortune Sports Ill.u.s.trated, Fortune, Mentadent toothpaste, Tabasco sauce, Uncle Ben's long-grain rice, mayonnaise, little-eared pasta sh.e.l.ls, and red felt-tipped markers. She stuffs odd mementos in her tote: his lucky plaid pants, the ones he wore when he won the 10k Race for Race around Lake Merritt, a can of shaving cream, the blue rubber bulb he uses to clean his ears. She hopes his ears stay dirty and hairy and full of middle-aged earwax.

At the front door, she pauses then locks it and strides past the movers smoking on the lawn awaiting her next order. An unintentional wave-a small fluttering hand movement that in another time would have greeted her children, her husband, welcomed friends and family to her home-lets them know she is ready to leave. She opens the garage door and tosses the opener and all the house keys onto the floor. Pulling out of the garage, she reminds herself to tell the gardener that it is time to trim the magnolia tree. But no, she doesn't have to do that anymore. It is only when she reaches the bottom and looks back at the yellowish house seated above and away from others that her tears begin to roll. It is only when she looks at the van in the driveway that she understands that the house is neither Randall's nor hers-it is just where she used to live.

The sky outside is bright even though Lena's watch shows eight o'clock: almost the end of the longest day of her life. She sits crossed-legged in the middle of the living room floor of the place she will call home for a while. Lighted candles cover the coffee table, the kitchen counter, the wide windowsills. Tina booms through the perfection of the MP3's tiny earphones and sings of universal heartache in a tune written back when Lena was happy. When she would not have felt what Tina sings of those wings and the unhappiness-soundless, surprising, invisible-they bring.

I will never be the same again... I will never be the same again...

The room darkens, a sign that-though she cannot see it from this side of the building-the sun is toppling behind San Francisco. In the hours that Lena has been in her new s.p.a.ce she has scrubbed, dusted high corner ceilings, sponged fingerprints from switch plates, disinfected toilets and sinks, bleached the insides of the refrigerator and dishwasher. Signs of whomever lived in the apartment before are gone, and she wonders if she had smiled and f.u.c.ked Randall every night and more like he thought a good wife should, would she be here now?

Once she believed that when they were empty-nesters, she and Randall would move into a smaller place, maybe an apartment in San Francisco. Once she relished the idea of wearing the s.e.xy nightgowns she rarely wore because of the kids, or making love instead of dinner on the kitchen counters. That was the way life was supposed to be for her and Randall. What else had she worked so hard for? Not this loneliness she can already feel sinking into her bones.

"I have to get out of here."

There are few customers in the video store: a weary-eyed man-an insomniac Lena guesses from the drawn look of his face-two teens with popcorn and sodas, an old couple t.i.ttering in front of the adult movie section, and a bedraggled woman in pink terrycloth house slippers and a floor-length trench coat. Lena peers at her own fuzzy-covered feet and wonders if this woman is fighting the blues, too. She follows her down the aisle and pretends to scan the shelves. "I'm getting a divorce, and it's so hard to sleep."

"Me, too. I do nothing but cry. All of the time. And look at me..." The woman's voice is edged with controlled hysteria. Her hair and dingy outfit give the impression that no one who cares has looked at her in a long time.

A bleach-stained sweatshirt and Randall's good-luck shorts hang from Lena's hips, slimmer now from the stress of separation. "I came looking for a little inspiration. Have you ever seen this?" She points to What's Love Got to Do with It What's Love Got to Do with It on the last row of the wall-to-wall shelving. "If you can get past the violence, there's a message." on the last row of the wall-to-wall shelving. "If you can get past the violence, there's a message."

Pink Slippers shivers and stares like Lena is crazy.

"Think about it. She found her inner strength and left a terrible relationship. In her forties. With nothing but her name and her talent."

A light of recognition brightens the woman's reddened, blue eyes. "And then she turned into a superstar, and he was never heard of again."

"Maybe there are other movies like this one." Lena walks up the aisle, her new friend behind her, to the clerk barely awake behind the counter. The woman appears to be over fifty, if the lines in the corner of her eyes and mouth mean anything. "We're looking for movies to inspire us. We're getting divorced."

"From our husbands husbands," Pink Slippers chimes in.

The clerk points to her unadorned ring finger and scribbles t.i.tles on a tablet.

"Oh, look! Waiting to Exhale Waiting to Exhale." Pink Slippers shouts.

If a cafe were open they could collect their movies and go there to guzzle gallons of coffee and cry. She would have told Pink Slippers that if she had watched that movie sooner she would have slit Randall's tires or burned his clothes or sold all of his stuff and that he probably would have had her arrested.

"Mostly, I want to watch Tina's movie," Lena says. "That's all I need right now."

Outside, Pink Slippers digs in her pockets and pulls out a cigarette. She opens what appears to be, in the brightness of the white neon sign, an expensive lacquered lighter. "I don't know about you, but this is the most fun I've had in a h.e.l.l of a long time." She sucks in a long drag and extends the cigarette to Lena, who takes it, coughing as she, too, inhales deeply.

"Thanks." Lena snickers. "I hope it was as good for you as it was for me."