“Hey,” the girl said. She set a small wooden box on the table, House of Windsor in red lettering on top.

“Hey yourself. Can I have one of your cigars?”

“There’s just pictures inside.”

Jean was thinking of Crane at breakfast this morning. How he’d stared at her, the sadness in his face so palpable it had made her want to scream. “You still ride around with your stepdaddy in his copmobile?”

“Not for awhile.”

“But you’re fine with each other?”

“Sure.” She preferred her mother like this. Sweetly buzzed. “That’s not the kind of plastic bottle that gives you cancer, is it?”

“No, it’s the safe kind.” Jean shook the ice again. “I checked.”

“I might make a drink myself.”

“There’s orange juice inside if you want a mixer.” She blew a plume of smoke toward the kitchen door.

When Griff came back out her mother had opened the cigar box and taken out the wedding picture of herself and Griffin.

“Isn’t this a peach?” She tossed the picture down on the table. “God, I didn’t know shit then, except that your dad was a catch.”

“Can I leave this stuff over here?”

Jean slumped back in her chair. “Worst mistake I ever made in my life was letting you stay out there with that old man after Crane and I got married.” The sweet buzz was souring. “I know damn well it’s why you gave up on me. Us not living together.”

“Einar burned a bunch of stuff.” There were kids in the yard next door running through a sprinkler, laughing. “Some of it was mine.”

“No shit.” The good mood returned. “What you ought to do is move out now. You get stuck there after he turns into a total nutcase, it’ll look worse. If you leave then, I mean.”

Griff stirred her drink with a finger and Jean straightened her legs, pulling her summer dress up mid-thigh.

“At least I’ve still got good calves.” She looked up smiling, boxing her hands in front of her face like she was holding a camera, making a clicking sound. “ Wyoming snapshot. Mother and daughter getting hammered in the middle of the day. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

“Einar’s sister came out from Chicago.”

“Marin?”

“Yes.”

Jean reached over to pat her daughter’s hand. “I think it’s wonderful you’re taking in new patients for your nursing home, dear. Makes me proud, being a dropout nurse’s assistant myself.”

“I didn’t know you quit.”

“It’s the shit and piss they don’t tell you about when you sign up. Bodily fluids. That’s what it comes down to.” She sucked from her bottle.

“She came out to help with Einar.”

“The prodigal lesbian leading the blind.” Jean stubbed the cigarette out, using the butt to rake the ash up against the sides. “I’m thinking of moving. Maybe the southwest this time.”

“You and Crane?”

“I’m afraid your step-buddy has been out screwing another pooch.”

Griff was staring at the caragana at the border of the yard, grown up thick with yellow blossoms. “I don’t think he’s the type.” She was trying to count the times she’d moved with her mother. She could remember the house in Florida. The one in Iowa.

“Well, he sure as hell ain’t fucking me.”

A magpie dove at the bird feeder and a vireo hit the screen, bouncing to the ground.

Griff stood up to watch the little olive-gray bird right itself, shaking its head. “Do you have a cat?”

“We’re out of cats.” Jean leaned forward with her elbows on the table. “Is this too much information for you all at once?”

“I just think you’re wrong.”

“Oh, God, it’s you, isn’t it?”

“Not funny, Mother.”

Jean sat up straighter. “What if he’s fucking somebody older than me? Wouldn’t that suck shit?”

The stunned bird took a step, falling onto its side again.

“Can I ask you something?”

“As long as it doesn’t have anything to do with what’s wrong with me.”

“Do you think my work’s any good?”

“You mean your skeleton thingies?”

“Yes.”

Jean stared at the raw wood in the ceiling, considering. “Well, they’re a lot more interesting than gnomes, or jockeys, or Greek goddesses. Did I tell you I saw a five-foot-high angel at the tree farm in Sheridan?”

“Lawn ornaments?”

“Which one am I supposed to be?”

“I don’t have anyone in particular in mind when I make them.”

“You know I don’t know how to talk about art.” She leaned forward, staring down again at her wedding photograph. “But I do know what this is.” She was tapping a finger on the table. “What you’ve got right there is a picture of the last time your mother was feeling lucky.”

HELEN PARKED by the office and the only person in the lobby was a stocky boy, maybe twenty-five, with a bad complexion. He was watching a Rockies game on the plasma TV in the breakfast nook and, when he noticed her, hurried around behind the counter.

“I’m Mrs. Johnson,” she said. “I think my husband already checked us in.”

The gold-colored nametag over his shirt pocket read Tyler.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “He said you’d be coming in separately.”

He coded a key card, slid it across the counter and smoothed out a map of the complex, bending over it with a red pen and drawing a line around to the back of the westernmost wing. “If you park around here, it’ll be hard to see your car from the highway.” He was smiling-leering, really-and staring unguardedly at her breasts.

She folded the map. “Is your manager on duty?”

The smile dropped away, along with the color from his face. “Yes, ma’am. She’s in the back.”

“You want me to have a talk with her about this attitude you’ve got going on?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then try not being such a smutty little shithead. Okay?”

He lowered his voice. “Yes, ma’am.”

She drove around to the back of the Spring Hill Suites, spotted Crane’s pickup and parked beside it. When she let herself in, the drapes were drawn and she stood there blinking.

“What did you tell him?” He was sitting in a chair by the table in the little efficiency kitchen.

“I said I was going to spend the afternoon at the Sanctuary. It’s a spa up on Twenty-fourth. I said I was going to get a massage and something called a Vichy Shower Body Polish.”

“They have a pool here.”

“What did you tell Jean?”

“We needed a Costco run. I already went.”

There was the sharp bleating of a car alarm, then just the grind of traffic.

“Did you bring anything to drink?” she asked.

“There’s a bottle of wine in the refrigerator.”

She dropped her purse by the door and walked to the refrigerator, taking the bottle out. It was open.

“There’s some glasses in the cupboard right there, and some mugs.” He lifted up his juice glass.

She set a coffee mug down from the cupboard, pouring it half full. “I’m glad we’re doing this.”

“Me too.”

She snapped on the light in the hood over the stove and stepped out of her sandals and unbuttoned her blouse, taking her time, stopping to sip the wine. She dropped the blouse on the floor, then her shorts, her bra and panties on top. She smiled, taking up the mug, and turned toward the bedroom, the light from the stove glinting in the single gold chain around her neck.

He finished his wine and pulled his boots off and walked to the bedroom doorway. She was sitting with the covers folded to her waist, the lamp on beside the bed. He looked toward the window, but the curtains were drawn. He pulled his shirttails loose. “I’m not going to be a lot of good to you.” He shrugged. “I should’ve said something about it the other night.” He watched her set her wine on the night table.

“The ALS take this away from you too?”

“I guess that’s what it was.”

“Didn’t you go to a doctor? I mean, don’t you want to find out?”

“I didn’t see the point.”

“Jean might’ve.”

“I think she’s relieved.”