"I'm wondering how she'd do in a home."

"Can I be blunt?"

"Sure." She'd spent a lot of time with Leo since her mother had come home. They weren't friends, exactly, but it was impossible not to feel close to someone who was going through this with her. She felt close to Jose, too, but in a different way. He was like a brother, somebody she traded s.h.i.t with. Leo was close to Margot's age and had a no-nonsense maternal quality that Faith had quickly responded to. She was a lot like Bibi, actually, without the attention to her wardrobe and hair.

Still, Faith girded herself, trying to be ready to hear she was a terrible daughter.

"Your mom is slipping fast. Faster than I usually see. I don't know why, but she's losing a lot of herself every single day. In my opinion-and, you know, I'm no doctor, but I've been working with these patients for twenty years-looking at what I've seen this month or so I've been here, I'd be surprised if she had any of her present self by the end of the year."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. It's scary, I know. Don't worry about me taking a gla.s.s to the noggin. It happens. You know, in my job, I have to pay attention to a lot of subtle signs. It gets to be a habit. What's between you and her-not so subtle. I don't know what it is, except what your mom's blurted out, but I know you two have had a rocky road together. That's plain as day. It's not my place to tell you what to do. But I will say that she doesn't know you much right now. I don't think it'll be long before she doesn't know this life at all. That'll be a blessing for her, not having any more moments of knowing all she's lost. She won't remember who she's hurt, or who hurt her. Her life will get real simple, wherever she is. So if you're thinking about residential care for her, I think you should make that decision for yourself, not for her."

"I guess...I guess I want to be a better person than she is. Or was. Or...I don't know."

"Gonna be blunt again, Faith. You already are a better person."

That afternoon, she called Sera in Tokyo. It was the next morning there, and Sera was breathless when she answered. "Hey, Faith. I hope you don't mind if I walk and talk. I'm just getting to the office."

"That's fine. I have a question for you."

"Shoot." She moved the phone from her mouth and rattled something off in j.a.panese. "There a problem?"

"No. I'm just wondering if you can still foot the bill to put mom in a home."

There was no immediate response, and Faith listened for a few seconds to the noise of morning corporate bustle in Tokyo. "Did something happen?"

A whole lifetime of somethings had happened. "No. She hurt one of her nurses, but that's apparently not a big deal. It's me. I'm back with Michael, and we want to start a life."

Sera had been away at college during all the drama of the time before, but of course she knew about most of it. "Really? That's going well?"

"It is. But Mom doesn't fit into the mix. I have to make a choice."

"Well, thank G.o.d. Yes, you do! Have a life, for Pete's sake! Go back to the beach or do whatever you want. Of course I'll pay. I have all the contact info for the San Gabriel center. It's...three-thirty there...okay. I'll set some time aside in the next hour or so and give them a call. Do me a favor, and you call, too. They'll need a local contact."

"Yeah, okay. You're sure this is right?"

"Jesus, Faith. I don't know why you're not sure. Hey-we should sell her house. Can you manage that? It would be nice for those proceeds to defray some of the costs."

"I can handle that. You can set up a trust or whatever it is we should do."

Her financier sister laughed into the phone. "Yeah, I'll take care of it. I'm really glad you made this decision, sis. It's the right one. She'll get the best care, and you can move on. You left home for a good reason, remember? If you didn't come back for Dad, I don't understand why you tried to come back for Mom."

Faith was still thinking about that question when she ended the call. There wasn't an easy answer. But when she thought of sending her mother away, she had the same kind of feeling deep in her chest that she'd felt on the night she'd run away. A sense of something lost, even though it wasn't something she'd ever really had, even though it wasn't something she could even identify. That night, the feeling had slowed her limbs and made it physically difficult to leave. The memory of it still hurt, even now.

memory Faith had parked Dante around the corner and about halfway down the block; its engine was loud and recognizable, and even though she was waiting until the house had been dark and quiet for almost an hour, her father was a light sleeper, and he might hear her start her car.

She wasn't bringing much. Though she'd been planning this for months, there was very little of her old life she ever wanted to see again. Two duffels and her backpack. And Sly. That was all. Not even any of her art stuff. That was the only thing that was really hard to leave behind, but it was too much to carry light.

She didn't have much money on her, but she had a savings account with several thousand dollars in it, and she had an ATM card. She'd stop at several places close to the house and take out what she could from each one.

At midnight, she'd turned eighteen. Her parents were planning a big party for her for that night: the kind that came with a caterer and a band. She thought it was some kind of guilt thing. Or maybe not. It was hard to imagine Margot feeling guilty for getting what she'd wanted. And Blue still could barely look at Faith. But Margot wanted this party.

It didn't matter. Faith would be long gone by the time her parents woke up.

She'd gutted it out in this house, still locked away. She was on independent study, so, with nothing better to do, she'd finished all the course work for junior and senior years and had graduated. Then she'd spent the summer working in the bike shop office, her father's watchful eye on her all the time. Bethany and Joelle had faded out of her life.

She'd waited until she was eighteen because she knew her father would hunt her down, and she knew he would find her. She'd decided to go ahead and take her uniquely recognizable car because she loved it, and she knew it ultimately wouldn't matter whether she drove Dante away from home or if she'd bought a ticket on a Greyhound, or hitched, or any other mode of transportation. He would hunt, and he would find.

But at eighteen, she had the right to stay away, and she had decided that she would call the cops if she needed to. Her parents had instilled in her a deep distrust of law enforcement, and she knew it would be a terrible betrayal to sic them on her father. But nothing like the betrayal she'd endured. So she would take whatever help she needed to stay away.

Knowing that, if her mother woke in the middle of the night, she could well open the door and peek in, Faith did the age-old trick of stuffing pillows and stuffed animals under her covers to look like a person.

The hallway floor creaked badly in this old house, so Faith slid open one of her windows and dropped her bags, then crawled through and followed them, landing on her hands and feet on the gra.s.s about seven feet below her window. It was August, and she'd had the windows open anyway, so Margot wouldn't think it strange if she did check it.

Faith gathered up her few belongings and crossed to the back gate, then went down the narrow alley and around to Dante. She felt stranger than she thought she would. For weeks, months, almost all she'd been able to think of was freedom. She'd counted the days, the hours, then the minutes until she could get away from this home that had become a prison, from these people who'd taken everything from her.

But as she hoisted her baggage into her car, her chest ached with loss and nostalgia. Her father had been her daddy. She'd always been able to talk to him. They had the same sense of humor, the same outlook, then same impatience with people. It had never really bothered her that her mom didn't have a lot of use for her, because her daddy had always been there for her. Even though that part of them was gone, as Faith prepared to leave him behind forever, she ached with the loss of him more than ever. She ached even for the loss of her mother's love, and she'd never even felt that with any particular potency.

When she had everything in the bed, she turned and went back to the house. She wasn't leaving Sly behind. Margot seemed to like him well enough, but Faith didn't trust her at all.

As she walked back down the alley, she called for her cat, calling his name and making the clucking sound he recognized as a dinner call. But no Sly. She went back into the yard, closing the gate quietly, and sat in the shadows not far from the patio, still calling, but mindful of the open windows throughout the house. Her parents' bedroom faced the front, but still.

After nearly half an hour, Faith knew that she had to go, with or without her cat. If he didn't show up, she would have to leave him behind, and lose the last piece she had of Michael.

Pinching her arms hard to stave off the sobs, still calling and clucking, Faith crossed back through the dark yard, her mother's elaborate garden, and went out the back gate. Sly never emerged from the shadows.

She hoped he was off somewhere getting laid. Or beating up another cat.

"Bye, Sly. Love you, dude." She climbed in behind the wheel and closed the door.

Faith had no official place to go. She wanted distance, that was all. But she knew the San Francisco art scene was cool, and she'd read several artist biographies that told stories about just landing in the city with no job or apartment or anything and just figuring it out. San Francisco was big and crowded, too, and she thought big and crowded was a better way to hide than small and isolated. So, after she cobbled together a couple thousand dollars from ATMs, she drove north.

She stopped about two-thirds of the way and refueled using her cash, and picked up a couple of packs of HoHos and a four pack of Red Bulls. By the time she crossed the Bay Bridge, the sun was coming up, and she was tweaking on sugar and caffeine.

At probably about the same time her parents were learning that she was gone from her old life, Faith was arriving in her new one.

And G.o.d, the city was gorgeous.

It was a typical Sat.u.r.day afternoon in late September. The heavy morning fog had burned off and left a brilliant, cloudless day in its wake, warmer in the fall than it ever was in the summer on the Bay. Every tourist in California, from every country on the globe, all seemed to have decided to converge on Pier 39 at the same time. Faith was quite sure she had never seen so many people in this little shop in her few weeks working here.

Her first couple of weeks in San Francisco had been terrifying. The hotels were crazy expensive, even the s.h.i.tty ones, and parking wasn't much better. She'd spent a lot of nights sleeping in Dante-which had its own set of special challenges. But she'd spent her days getting to know the city and finding the artists, especially the buskers and street artists, and she'd built up a little network. She'd graduated from car-sleeping to couch-surfing. Then she'd gotten this job as a clerk at a 'gallery' on Pier 39. It was really just a higher-end souvenir shop that sold prints and figurines, but it paid okay. She'd moved in with a coworker. Things were looking up. At least she could now reliably eat, sleep, and wash.

Dante was garaged at the back of a new friend's absurdly long garage-one long row that fit three cars. In order to get to her car, she had to make arrangements for the other two cars to be out of the garage. Luckily, she didn't need it. Walking and public transportation were all she needed, and she was glad to have her rolling piece of art somewhere out of sight. Because so far, in the seven weeks she'd been away, no one had found her-or, at least, no one had contacted her.

But as Faith looked up from wrapping her customer's gla.s.s seash.e.l.l in tissue, her eyes met a familiar set of brown eyes, set in a face with the faintly emerging wrinkles of a woman who laughed often, a face framed with chocolate-brown hair, carefully cut and styled.

Bibi.

Faith froze, the wrapped seash.e.l.l in one hand, the paper bag she'd been about to slide it into in the other.

"Hi, honey. You look good." Bibi spoke over the head of the small, elderly woman who was trying to buy a gla.s.s seash.e.l.l.

"Bibi."

"Miss? Excuse me."

Faith started and looked down at her customer. "Oh! Sorry." She finished bagging the purchase and handed it over. "Thank you for shopping with us today." The woman nodded and turned to fight her way out of the shop.

"Cover me for a few minutes, would you?" Faith took off the canvas ap.r.o.n, embroidered across the bib with the shop logo and name, that served as their uniform.

Renee, her coworker and roommate, gave her a severe stink-eyeing. "Are you kidding me right now? There must be a hundred people in here!"

"I know-and that one is my mom's best friend." She nodded toward Bibi. Renee knew a little bit about Faith's home situation-not details, but enough to know that she'd left under a dark cloud and was trying to stay under the radar.

"Oh. Fu-" She looked up at the crowd of customers in earshot. "d.a.m.n. Okay, but please don't be long. It's just you and me for two more hours."

"I just need to arrange to meet her later. I promise. Five minutes."

Bibi was waiting for her at the restaurant when she got to the Ferry Building. She'd walked from Pier 39-thirty-eight piers. Renee had offered her a ride, but she wanted to walk and get her head straight. What did it mean that it was Bibi who was here? Well, it very likely meant that her parents knew where she was, too. Was anyone with her? Would they try to force her home?

She saw her in the window before she went in. She was alone, drinking a gla.s.s of wine and looking over the menu. When she saw Faith approach, she set the menu down and stood up. They hugged. Faith felt awkward at first, but once she was in Bibi's arms, she held on for a while.

Then they sat, and Faith just jumped in. "Do they know?"

"They do. They're not here. It's just me. I talked everybody into lettin' me talk to you first. It wasn't easy-I practically had to tie Blue down. He's been crazed since you left, baby."

The server came by, saving Faith from having to respond to that statement right away. She ordered an iced tea, and the server left, promising to be back quickly with her tea, and ready to take their order. Then Bibi crossed her arms on the table and leaned in. "The way you left, Faith. On your birthday, with that big party planned..."

"Not my party. That was Margot performing motherhood. It had nothing to do with me. What had to do with me was five months locked away in that house. And what she made me do-what they made me do. What my father did to Michael. That was what had to do with me. I hope she was mortified that I left on my birthday."

"Bitter's not a good color on you, Faith."

Faith sat back in a huff. She didn't want to have this conversation. "Look. I know you're on their side-"

"I'm not. I'm on the side of my family, and that's you, too."

"Can't straddle that fence, Bibi. I just need to know if I have to be ready to fight the whole club off. Is somebody going to come and yank me off the street and drag me back to L.A.?"

"That's what your father wants. But Hooj is holdin' him off. I'm here to see if you're doin' okay and to ask you what we can do to make this better. If you could see Blue, Faith. He misses you so much. Everythin' that's happened this year-it's tearin' him down. You're his baby girl."

Faith laugh, the sound choked off by looming tears. She pinched her arm and found some calm. "No, I'm not. Not anymore. He told me so himself. Unless you have a time machine, there's nothing. I'm done. Go home and tell them that I'm fine. I have a job and a place, and this is my home now. I don't ever want to see them again. Not ever."

"Faith. Please, baby. Please help me put this family back together."

"It wasn't me who tore it apart. All I did was fall in love."

Bibi laughed quietly, dabbing her eyes with the linen napkin. "Oh, baby. You're so young. You still see your life like an epic story that you get to tell. It's not how it works. Life isn't epic. It's small and made up of mistakes. I know you see that you're takin' a stand against a hurt that was done, and I see that, too. But I'm tellin' you to imagine for a second that it might be a mistake. You know the life your father leads. What if he dies before you have a chance to realize what you gave up? Can you live with that, never seein' him again, after how close you've always been?

"How close we were. And yeah. I can live with it. I've already lost what we were. I'm done. I mean it. I'm young, not stupid."

"Okay, honey," Bibi sighed. She rooted around in her big handbag and pulled out a burner phone, still in its packaging. "Can we set this up, and you and me keep in touch this way?"

Faith stared at the phone like it might leap up and bite her at any second.

"Just you and me, Faith. I won't tell anybody else about it. I just picked this up here in town. Hooj doesn't even know about it-but I probably will tell him. But I won't tell anyone else, and it'll be just me on the line if you use it. And I'll call sometimes, too. Just to check in. Every couple of months or so, unless you call more."

Still, Faith could only stare.

"Please. Faith, please."

"Okay." She pulled the phone toward her. "Okay. Just you."

"Just me. I swear."

"Swear on Hoosier's life."

Bibi blinked, and then she took a breath. "On Hoosier's life, then. I swear." She smiled. "Thank you, Faith. You'll stay and eat, right? I want to send you off into the world here with a good meal."

"I eat fine, Bibi. I'm good. I really am."

Bibi reached across the table and grabbed Faith's hand. "I'm glad. But have dinner with me?"

The server was back with the iced tea. Faith picked up a menu and asked for a few more minutes to make her selection.

The phone that Faith had, over the years, taken to calling the Bibi Express, rang in the middle of the night. Faith pushed Tau's leg off her and got up. He groaned and rolled over but didn't wake.

She walked naked into the living room and dug the phone out of a drawer in the dresser she used as a television stand. By the time she got there, it had stopped ringing, so she stood there, looking at the screen, waiting for it to show a voice mail.

Bibi never called in the middle of the night, so Faith felt a small fizz of disquiet in her head. Something was wrong, she knew.

Instead of a voice mail, the phone rang again, Bibi's name reappearing on the screen. Faith answered. "Hey, Beeb.

Bibi's voice was heavy, like her throat was swollen. "Baby, come home. Right now."

Faith sat down on the ottoman she used like a coffee table. "What's wrong?"

"It's your daddy, hon." Bibi cleared her throat and sniffed before she went on. "He died tonight. You have to come home."