"Yes, thank you. The, ah, the kiss worked. For my knee."

She nodded solemnly. "Aba always puts a Band-Aid on mine."

"Good," I said. Gentian violet. That's what Hjordis had used on my cuts and scrapes.

I looked at Luz, she looked at me. She had seen me bludgeon two adults half to death with a gun. I had no idea how to begin, or even what I wanted to begin.

"How are you?" I said.

She shrugged. Her eyes were clear, no sign of a sleepless night, but it would come: the nightmares, the sweating, the fear that nothing around you is safe. Payment always came due.

"If you have bad dreams, you can talk to me. If you want."

She shrugged again. I looked around the trailer. Maybe my mother hadn't known what to do with a little girl, either.

"Would you like to see my computer?"

She didn't say no, so I got out the laptop. The case was soft black leather. While I booted up and acted busy with screen and keyboard, she pulled the case onto her lap and stroked it with the back of her hand.

I swiveled the whole thing around on my knee so she could see the SimCity screen. "This is a game where you can build your own city."

She gave me an uncertain look.

"Here," I said. "Let's put it back in the case, keep it safe while we play." She handed over the case unwillingly, but once the laptop was snugged in place with the screen still up, I put it back on her lap, and now she paid attention. I couldn't kneel, so I squatted next to her to type. Her hair smelled faintly of chlorine. "See, I can make factories, and parks, and farms."

"Can you make churches?"

"Yes," I lied, and put in a hotel.

"It doesn't look like a church."

"No," I agreed. "It's not a very good program."

"Program," she repeated under her breath.

"We could see if we can draw a better church." She looked around, as if expecting crayons and paper to appear from thin air. "No, look, here." I pulled up Photoshop. "This, here, works like a paintbrush, and this a bit like a spray can." I sketched an outline of a cathedral. It looked like a derelict shed. She smiled politely. I erased it. "Or we could borrow someone else's picture. From the web." For once the connection worked first time. I went to the Library of Congress image database. And then I knew exactly what I wanted.

I worked quickly. It didn't take long. "There," I said, and sat back. It was the Mexico City cathedral. She was riveted. "If you like, we can copy that over, use the image, the picture, for cathedrals in the game."

She nodded mutely. I kept a small window open in the top left of the screen for her to look at while I got back to SimCity.

"Now, see, we paste this into here, and look, there it is." A tiny cathedral in the middle of downtown SimCity.

"Not there. Here," she pointed to a park. Quick look to see what Button was up to. He had abandoned the paper clip and was examining the hinge on a cabinet door. "It should go there, on this side. And there should be government edificios on the other side."

Just like Mexico City, where the Catholic cathedral, built on the ruins of an Aztec temple, faced government buildings across a huge plaza. Maybe one day I'd tell her about Montezuma's palace.

"You do it," I said. I showed her how to work the touch pad. Her fingers weren't used to machine ways, but after a while she got the hang of it. She moved the cathedral.

Button was trying to dismantle the stove, but I had disconnected the propane before leaving North Carolina, so I didn't worry.

"How do I make buildings?"

"You have to pay for them." I showed her how, and she set to work with a curiously bland face, no frowns of concentration or lip caught in her teeth.

Button started in on the fridge. I distracted him with the remote for the TV, and while he sat, fascinated with the changing pictures, Luz played god, or at least mayor.

"What are taxes?" she asked after a while.

I thought for a minute. "The government's tithe."

"Oh." Ten minutes' silence while she put in too many parks, stroked the leather carrying case absently, hummed tonelessly under her breath, checked once or twice to make sure Button was still amused by his own toy, and finally turned to me for help. "There's no money left."

"You'll have to demolish some of those parks."

She frowned. "Parks are nice."

"Yes. But there's no point having them if everyone's leaving."

Fidget. Check on Button again. Sideways look. I just waited. "So what should I do?"

"Hard choice. Demolish the parks or have an empty city." I knew which I'd choose.

"No."

"They're your only choices."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Well then, you'll have to cheat."

Consternation. Cheating was probably not much encouraged by the Plaume City Church of Christ congregation. Aud as devil's advocate.

"You don't like that idea?"

She shook her head.

"Why not?"

"Cheating's bad."

"Who says?"

"God."

"Where does it say that in the Bible?"

Thoughtful look.

"Is there a commandment against it?"

She ran through the commandments in her head. "Thou shalt not bear false witness?"

"You don't actually have to lie. You just sort of step around what everyone expects. It depends, of course, on what you want from the game."

"People and parks."

"Yes, but do the ends justify the means?" Incomprehension. How old did children have to be before you could talk to them as real human beings? I tried again. "Sometimes people play this game to test how clever they are: to see how many people and parks they can make without cheating. And sometimes people use it to just play, to have fun, not as any kind of test: just to build things, to see how they look." All about perspective.

"People and parks," she said again.

"Then watch." I tapped in call cousin vinnie. "Now, you see that window-that man offering free money if you'll just sign his petition?" She nodded. "If you go ahead and take that money, it's yours, no strings attached."

"For nothing?" Not so much a question as an expression of skepticism.

"Yes and no. Now watch, see what happens if you don't take the money and type in this extra code."

I entered zyxwvu.

"Oh!" she said as the beautiful SimCity castle appeared.

"That boosts land prices, which-"

The trailer filled with the blatting of a sell-sell-sell commercial for cheap furniture: Button had discovered the volume control. I had to get up to turn it down manually. I swapped to a channel with strangely colored cartoon characters running about doing impossible things, and recorded three minutes of it. Then I showed him how to play back: freeze frame, slow motion forwards, backwards, jump back to real time. He loved that, making the characters go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. He giggled: a strange, grown-up sound.

Luz was looking fixedly at the screen again. "What's that?" She pointed to a farm on the outside of her city.

"Ah. Crop circles."

Before I had to try explain to a nine-year-old Christian fundamentalist some computer geek's in joke about alien visitors and crop circles, Adeline knocked on the trailer wall and called, "Miz Thomas? If you'd send the children out, then step into the house when convenient, I'd be grateful."

Hjordis's house in Oslo is filled in the afternoons with sunlight. In the evenings and during winter, she burns a score of candles to soften and lift the dark that flattens even the best artificial light. Her living room feels alive; it seems to dance. By contrast the Carpenters' front room, with its thick brown curtains, umber wool rug, and heavy furniture, felt stiff and formal, but Hjordis would have understood immediately the ritual aspects of the gathering: to the right of the fireplace, Jud sat in a wing-backed chair turned slightly to face the upholstered sofa, where I sat in a carefully nonconfrontational pose, briefcase tucked out of sight. Adeline's chair faced Jud's across the fire, turned to give him all her support.

Jud wore his Sunday best for a second day in a row. I don't know what Adeline had told him about me and my reasons for wanting to give them money every month, but he treated me as though I were the nineteenth-century son of his employer, come to ask for the hand of his daughter in marriage. He was not in a position to say no, but the forms must be observed.

He cleared his throat. "Miz Thomas," then stopped. I could feel Adeline willing him on. "Be obliged if you would listen." I nodded. He took a handwritten document from his inside breast pocket and stood, and began to read, as though it were a church lesson: seven hundred and fifty dollars a month, payable to J. Carpenter, in advance, on the first of every month; a day school to be agreed upon, Luz to attend, extra items such as uniforms and school equipment to be paid for by me; Luz to be kept clean, well fed and clothed, and happy, "loved as best we're able, as if she were family." Luz's legal documents to be kept by my lawyer, and a letter received from said lawyer confirming that fact. Luz to remain with the Carpenters while she was a minor. If my payments were more than thirty days late, the Carpenters were to receive the legal documents, and the agreement was rendered void. If they broke the agreement, they would surrender Luz.

He sat down, still holding the paper in both hands.

In my briefcase I had a sheaf of crisp photocopies and printouts, and Bette's impregnable legal draft. None mentioned love or family or happiness.

"May I see the paper?" I said.

He stood, handed it to me, sat.

There were several blank spaces I was obviously meant to complete, and a place to sign at the bottom. Under name, "Aud Thomas" had already been filled in. It was a feminine hand, Adeline's, though she was acting as if she had nothing to do with the proceedings, resolutely refusing to catch my eye when I looked at her. There was nothing about visitation rights, or lack of them.

"I agree with all these terms," I said. He took a pen from his pocket, handed it to me. It was an old transparent Bic ballpoint. "However, before I sign, I'd like to discuss one more matter." Adeline shifted but said nothing. Jud gestured for me to continue. "Your reassurance that I'm keeping my side of the bargain will come every month, with the money, but we haven't talked about my reassurance. Mr. Karp received written reports, but I would prefer a more personal arrangement. I'd like to talk to Luz myself every now and again, in person or by phone."

Adeline stared at her tightly clasped hands.

"You can't take her from this house," Jud said.

"Certainly not from the neighborhood," I said. Not until she was older.

After a long pause, he nodded. His word is his bond, Adeline had said. I nodded back. I filled in the name of my lawyer, along with her address and phone number, signed, and returned the paper to him.

He put his signature under mine. He hesitated a moment, then stood and offered me his hand. I stood, too, and we shook. He seemed momentarily confused as his hard, dry palm encountered mine.

I sat, opened the briefcase, and took out the papers. I separated Bette's draft, put it back in the case, and tapped the rest into a tidy pile. "These are copies of Luz's documentation. Birth certificate, adoption, passport, and so on. You'll need them to register her at school." I laid them next to me on the sofa. "There's also the matter of the first payment. In future months, of course, the funds can be wired directly to your account-though I will need the number of that account." Adeline was trying to communicate something to Jud with her expression. "I have enough cash with me to cover the first payment, but as your cash flow has been interrupted recently you might well prefer to begin with a larger sum, say, three months' worth. I could get that to you by tomorrow morning." Hopefully he would prefer nice crisp greenbacks to a personal check, which, with all its personal information, was out of the question.

He cleared his throat. "Appears acceptable." More frantic expression from Adeline. "The three-month sum. One month's money now." Adeline relaxed. "Rest tomorrow."

I stood, he followed suit, and I counted out seven hundred-dollar bills, two twenties, and a ten-slowly, so he could watch, and not have to appear untrusting by counting it afterwards. I handed him the stack. He seemed unsure what to do with it. Adeline rose and crossed to his side.

"The coffee will be ready about now. Should I take that to the accounts, then fetch it here for you while you finish up with Miz Thomas?" Jud handed her the money gratefully. She scooped the photocopies from the sofa. "Now you two sit. I'll be but a moment."

So we had to sit. Jud laid his hands on his knees, nodded at me, as solemnly as if we were sitting on pews.

The silence was complete. No ticking of a clock on the mantel. "Mrs. Carpenter tells me the crop wasn't too good this year," I said.

"Been worse."

"Yes," I said. "Still, I'm sorry for it. Perhaps next year will be better."

"Up to the good Lord."

"As is everything." I longed for the scent of rain-wet North Carolina dirt, of leaves slowly mulching beneath sturdy trunks. Or perhaps it would be snowing up there already. "But as my father used to say, God helps those who help themselves. And I think-"

Adeline came in with the coffee: not mugs this time but white china cups and matching saucers, decorated with tiny red roses, and a silver-plate set of pot, creamer, and sugar bowl. The teaspoons did not match. She poured, handed out the cups carefully. Once everyone was settled again, I went on.

"Mrs. Carpenter, I was just about to say to your husband that I think Luz is going to need your help. Yesterday was a very hard day. For you and Mr. Carpenter, yes, and Button, but especially for Luz."

"Yes," Adeline said, "but she does seem to have come through it nicely. She's a hardy little thing."

"She is," I said. Jud turned his sticky eyes to mine. "But I think in a little while-maybe a few days, maybe as long as a few weeks or even months-she won't be so fine."

"Nightmares," he said. "Had them when she first come."

"Miz Thomas, there aren't so many childish fears that a good hugging and a bit of prayer can't fix."

"Her fears aren't so childish. A lot happened yesterday that she won't have had time to tell you about yet." I looked from her to Jud. "When she's afraid, let her tell you what she's afraid of. And don't tell her it can't happen because some of the things that will be in her nightmares have happened." I would probably star in a few of those nightmares.

"They won't happen again," Jud said with certainty.