Laura declined her offer to dry and said, “You really ought to talk to him, you know.”

“Michael’s doing fine,” Karen said. “He’s adjusted well these last few days.”

“I don’t think platitudes are too useful right now, do you? You know what I mean.”

“The talent,” Karen said. “Does it always have to come around to that?”

“This time it does. Haven’t you thought about how confusing this all must be for him? Not just Turquoise Beach, but all that mess before you left—the Gray Man. What’s he supposed to think about it?”

I would prefer, Karen thought, that he didn’t think about it. She knew how ridiculous that would sound. But it would be simpler—“It would be simpler,” she said, “if we could just lead a normal life here.”

“Normal!” Her sister dropped a plastic gravy boat into the drainer. “You hold up that word like it’s some kind of holy relic! I mean, I understand—but Christ, Karen, I’m not sure ‘normal’ is something you and I can aim for!”

“For Michael’s sake—”

“I’m talking about Michael’s sake. He’s a smart kid, he’s curious, and I think he deserves whatever explanation we can give him.”

Karen was silent a while. Finally she said, “I was hoping to keep him above all this.”

“It’s a little past that.”

Laura dried her hands and sat at the small butcher-block table.

“Michael is a bright, curious kid. He should be talking to you about all this, not me.”

Karen looked up sharply. “He’s talked to you?”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth.”

Karen was shocked. “Everything? I mean—back home, Tim and Daddy, all that?” “All that.”

She was mortified. All this had happened behind her back. “He’s hardly ready! He’s only fifteen!” It was like a conspiracy. “Jesus, Laura, he’s my son! I have a right to make some choices!”

“He’s your son. And I’m sorry if I interfered. But he’s also a very confused young person badly in need of answers. He should have come to you… but he didn’t. He didn’t feel like he could.”

“So instead he came to you? Why?” She felt wounded. “Because you inhabit this hippie Utopia here? So what did you tell him? That everything would be okay if we all wore tie-dye and denim a little more often?”

Laura stood up and went back to the sink. She faced the window, which was full of night, and Karen could see her face reflected there, lips pressed tightly together.

Laura said, “This is the best I could do. You understand that? I think… whatever this talent we have is, I think it’s connected somehow with imagination. The ability to see what isn’t there, at least the shape of it, the outline. I wanted to find the best place I could, a place to live, a sane place—I wanted to dream it into existence. And this is the best I could do.” Her shoulders moved in a shrug. “Maybe I didn’t do too well.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Maybe Michael could do better. Did you ever consider that?”

She was taken aback. “Michael?”

“It’s obvious enough. Look at him sometime. I mean, really look.” Laura turned away from the window. Her fingers were tight against the rim of the counter. “I think he’s more talented than any of us… more talented even than Tim.”

But it was not something Karen wanted to think about.

Bad enough that Michael had to know about all this. Bad enough that she had brought him here; bad enough that Laura had dragged him into all that old family misery. Bad but, okay, maybe understandable. He was a part of it, and maybe she should have talked to him.

But she had not wanted to admit to herself that Michael himself might have the talent.

Had not allowed herself to admit it. It was the Great Unthinkable. The last time she had considered the idea—the memory came rushing back—was when she was pregnant. Michael had not been Michael then, had only been this presence inside her, an awkward weight, a coiling of life against her belly. Lying in bed at night, feeling him kick, she had allowed the thought: What if he is like me? She guessed it was like having one of those genetic diseases, that disease Woody Guthrie had. It had corrupted her life and might corrupt her child’s.

Could she bear that?

She had pressed herself against Gavin, who was sleeping soundly, until his warmth suffused her body. She resolved then, drifting toward a troubled sleep, that she would not even consider the possibility. Their child would be normal. She would make him normal. She would wish him into normalcy, pray him into normalcy; their home would be a normal home. Surely that was enough?

So Laura was right, of course. She had made an icon of that word, “normal.” It was a gift, and she had tried to give that gift to Michael.

Tried and—well, it should have been obvious— failed.

She raised her head and regarded her sister. “You’re saying I was the one who ran away… who hid.”

“I believed that once. I don’t think I can be so self-righteous now. I think we both ran away from it, each of us in our own way.” She added, “Michael’s different.”

Fearfully: “What do you mean?”

“He never learned to be afraid of it. He’s been asking questions you and I can’t answer. Did we inherit this? Is it a miracle, or is it something we can understand?”

Karen shook her head. “There aren’t any answers.”

“We can’t be sure of that. We never really tried to find them.”

“How would we?”

“Karen, I don’t know. But I think we would have to start at home, with Mama and Daddy. And we would probably have to talk to Tim.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Is it?”

“We’re safe here.” Laura said, “Are we?” “What do you mean?”

She spoke in careful, somber tones. “The Gray Man. That’s something else we never talked about. But he’s the same man, isn’t he? The same man we saw that night in the ravine, with Tim, all those years ago.”

Karen was precipitated suddenly back into her dream, the dark streets of that other seaside town, cold cobbles against her bare feet, and the Gray Man (it was him), offering gifts from the cavernous hollow of his coat. And Laura remembered it, too; therefore it wasn’t a dream, it was a memory; and only her desperate wanting had convinced her otherwise. She said, “He can’t find us here.”

“I would dearly love to believe that. Only I’m not sure it’s true. We just don’t know. And isn’t that the point? We don’t know enough to protect ourselves.”

“You said we’d be safe here!”

“Safer than where you were. But I can’t guarantee for how long.”

Karen whispered, “I don’t want to go back home… I don’t want to dig up all that trouble.”

Laura straightened the dish towel and hung it to dry. She walked to where Karen sat, put her hands on Karen’s shoulders. The touch was cool, soothing. “Neither do I,” she said. “You don’t know how much I don’t want to go home. I wouldn’t do it for myself. You want the honest truth, I don’t believe I would do it for you. But I think we should do it for Michael.”

Laura slept downstairs that night, with Emmett.

The affair was on-again, off-again, usually at Laura’s call. Emmett was almost pathologically easygoing about relationships. If Laura wanted to be his lover, fine. If she had something else to do or somebody else to see, well, he could live with that, too.

It was not an unhealthy attitude—it pretty much mirrored her own approach—but it lacked something in the way of passion.

But tonight she needed his warmth. She lay beside him in his bed, a beat-up four-poster he had acquired at a junk shop in Pueblo de Los Angeles, cradled in this outrageous down-filled mattress. They had made love and now the bedroom was dark and cool, a comforting place. Sometimes she liked to imagine Emmett’s bed as a sailing ship drifting out to sea, timbers creaking. She thought that was a fine way to fall asleep.