“You okay, baby? Cold""I'm fine." I glance quickly behind us and see the two security guys, whose names I forget, standing close by.Moving me in front of him, Christian puts both his arms around me in my shoulder.”

“I am not okay. I will be okay, but right now I am not okay. I want my husband to put his arms around me, to console me, to baby me a little bit. Just for a second.”

“His boots crunched behind me."And stop following me!" I yelled over my shoulder."I'm not following you.Stop walking in front of me.”

“I had just put my arms around him in a hug of gratitude when the door opened behind me without a knock. “Am I interrupting something?” a coolly pissed, accented voice asked. This time, my glance heavenward was in silent challenge. Is that how it is? Fine, then, bring it! Let’s see what you’ve got! Timmie jumped like he’d been stabbed. “Ungh!” I didn’t know what that meant, but the sight of him leaping away with a hand shielding his groin had me turning around in irritation. “Dammit, tell him you’re not going to neuter him!” Bones folded his arms and regarded Timmie without pity. “Why?” I gave him an evil look. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to get really, really celibate.”

“You cold?' He chafes my arms. I haven't been cold since I moved here. This is something else. 'No. But you can put your arms around me anyway.”

“Leaving Forever My son can look me level in the eyes now,and does, hard, when I tell him he cannot watchchainsaw murders at the midnight movie,that he must bend his mind to Biology,under this roof, in the clear light of a Tensor lamp.Outside, his friends throb with horsepowerunder the moon.He stands close, milk souron his breath, gauging the heat of my conviction,eye-whites pink from his new contacts.He can see me better than before. And I can seemyself in those insolent eyes, mostly headin the pupil's curve, closed in by the contoursof his unwrinkled flesh.At the window he wavesa thin arm and his buddies squall away in a glareof tail lights. I reach out my arm to his shoulder,but he shrugs free and shows me my father's narrow eyes,the trembling hand at my throat, the hard wallat the back of my skull, the raised fist framedin the bedroom window I had climbed through at three A.M."If you hit me I'll leave forever,"I said. But everything was fine in a few days, fine."I would have come back," I said, "false teeth and all."Now, twice a year after the long drive, in the yellow lightof the front porch, I breathe in my father's whiskey,ask for a shot, and see myself distorted inhis thick glasses, the two of us grinning,as he holds me with both hands at arm's length.”