Soon the pearls were making the rounds at the other table as well. Art's mother gave the necklace an especially critical eye, weighing it in her hand. "Just lovely" she said to LuLing, a bit too emphatically. Miriam simply observed, "Those beads are certainly large." Art gave the pearls a once-over and cleared his throat.

"Eh, what wrong?"

Ruth turned and saw her mother scrutinizing her face.

"Nothing," Ruth mumbled. "I'm just a little tired, I guess."

"Nonsense!" her mother said in Chinese. "I can see something is blocked inside and can't come out."

"Watch it! Spy talk!" Dory called from the other table.

"Something is wrong," LuLing persisted. Ruth was amazed that her mother was so perceptive. Maybe there was nothing the matter with her after all.

"It's that wife of Art's," Ruth finally whispered in her American-accented Mandarin. "I wish Art had not let her come."

"Ah! You see, I was right! I knew something was wrong. Mother always knows."

Ruth bit hard on the inside of her cheek.

"Now, now, don't worry anymore," her mother soothed. "Tomorrow you talk to Artie. Make him buy you a gift. He should pay a lot to show that he values you. He should buy you something like this." LuLing touched the necklace, which had been returned to Ruth's hands.

Ruth's eyes smarted with held-back tears.

"You like?" LuLing said proudly, switching back to the public language of English. "This real things, you know."

Ruth held up the necklace. She saw how the dark pearls glistened, this gift that had risen from the bottom of the sea.

Ruth held LuLing's arm as they walked to the hospital parking garage. Her slack-skinned limb felt like the bony wing of a baby bird.

LuLing acted alternately cheerful and cranky, unchanged by what had just transpired in the doctor's office. Ruth, however, sensed that her mother was growling hollow, that soon she would be as light as driftwood. Dementia. Ruth puzzled over the diagnosis: How could such a beautiful-sounding word apply to such a destructive disease? It was a name befitting a goddess: Dementia, who caused her sister Demeter to forget to turn winter into spring. Ruth now imagined icy plaques forming on her mother's brain, drawing out moisture. Dr. Huey had said the MRI showed shrinkage in certain parts of the brain that were consistent with Alzheimer's. He also said the disease had probably started "years ago." Ruth had been too stunned to ask any questions at the time, but she now wondered what the doctor meant by "years ago." Twenty? Thirty? Forty? Maybe there was a reason her mother had been so difficult when Ruth was growing up, why she had talked about curses and ghosts and threats to kill herself. Dementia was her mother's redemption, and God would forgive them both for having hurt each other all these years.

"Lootie, what doctor say?" LuLing's question startled Ruth. They were standing in front of the car. "He say I die soon?" she asked humorously.

"No." And tor emphasis, Ruth laughed. "Of course not.''

Her mother studied Ruth's face, then concluded: "I die. doesn't matter. I not afraid. You know this."

"Dr. Huey said your heart is fine," Ruth added. She tried to figure a way to translate the diagnosis into a condition her mother would accept. "But he said you may be having another kind of problem-with a balance of elements in your body. And this can give you troubles… with your memory." She helped LuLing into the front seat and snapped her seat belt in place.

LuLing sniffed. "Hnh! Nothing wrong my memory! I 'member lots things, more than you. Where I live little-girl time, place we call Immortal Heart, look like heart, two river, one stream, both dry-out…" She continued talking as Ruth went to the other side of the car, got in, and started the engine. "What he know? That doctor don't even use telescope listen my heart. Nobody listen my heart! You don't listen. GaoLing don't listen. You know my heart always hurting. I just don't complain. Am I complain?"

"No-"

"See!"

"But the doctor said sometimes you forget things because you're depressed."

"Depress 'cause can not forgot! Look my sad life!"

Ruth pumped the brakes to make sure they would hold, then steered the car down the falling turns of the parking garage. Her mother's voice droned in rhythm with the engine: "Of course depress. When Precious Auntie die, all happiness leave my body…"

Since the diagnosis three months before, LuLing had come to Art and Ruth's for dinner almost every night. Tonight Ruth watched her mother take a bite of salmon. LuLing chewed slowly, then choked. "Too salty," she gasped, as if she had been given deer lick for the main course.

"Waipo," Dory interjected, "Ruth didn't add any salt. I watched. None."

Fia kicked Dory. She made an X with her index fingers, the symbolic cross that keeps movie Draculas at bay. Dory kicked her back.

Now that Ruth could no longer blame her mother's problems on the eccentricities of her personality, she saw the signs of dementia everywhere. They were so obvious. How could she not have noticed before? The time-shares and "free vacations" her mother ordered via junk mail. The accusations that Auntie Gal had stolen money from her. The way LuLing obsessed for days about a bus driver who accused her of not paying the fare. And there were new problems that caused Ruth to worry into the night. Her mother often forgot to lock the front door. She left food to defrost on the counter until it became rancid. She turned on the cold water and left it running for days, waiting for it to become hot. Some changes actually made life easier. For one thing, LuLing no longer said anything when Art poured himself another glass of wine, as he was doing tonight. "Why drink so much?" she used to ask. And Ruth had secretly wondered the same. She once mentioned to him that he might want to cut back before it became a habit. "You should take up juicing again." And he had calmly pointed out that she was acting like her mother. "A couple of glasses of wine at dinner is not a problem. It's a personal choice."

"Dad?" Fia asked. "Can we get a kitten?"

"Yeah," Dory jumped in. " Alice has the cutest Himalayan. That's what we want."

"Maybe," Art replied.

Ruth stared at her plate. Had he forgotten? She had told him she was not ready for another cat. She would feel disloyal to Fu-Fu. And when the time was right tor another pet, an animal she inevitably would wind up feeding and cleaning, she preferred that it be a different species, a little dog.

"I once drive to Himalaya, long ways by myself," LuLing bragged. " Himalaya very high up, close to moon."

Art and the girls exchanged baffled looks. LuLing often issued what they considered non sequiturs, as free-floating as dust motes. But Ruth believed LuLing's delusions were always rooted in a deeper reason. Clearly this instance had to do with word association: Himalayan kitten, Himalayan mountains. But why did LuLing believe she had driven there by car? It was Ruth's job to untangle such puzzles. If she could find the source, she could help LuLing unclog the pathways in her brain and prevent more destructive debris from accumulating. With diligence, she could keep her from driving off a cliff in the Himalayas. And then it occurred to her: "My mother and I saw this really interesting documentary on Tibet last week," Ruth said. "They showed the road that leads to-"

But Dory interrupted her to say to LuLing, "You can't drive to the Himalayas from here."

LuLing frowned. "Why you say this?"

Dory, who like LuLing often acted on impulse, blurted, "You just can't. I mean, you're crazy if you think-"

"Okay I crazy!" LuLing sputtered. "Why you should believe me?" Her anger escalated like water in a teakettle-Ruth saw it, the rolling bubbles, the steam-and then LuLing erupted with the ultimate threat: "Maybe I die soon! Then everybody happy!"