I wanted a cigarette, but I didn’t want to move.

“My wife never did that to me.”

“Did you like it?”

“Did you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“What if I didn’t like it, though?”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I did. But what if I didn’t?”

He kissed my upper cheek. “Then I wouldn’t like it either.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well it’s true, Kathy.” He got up on one elbow and looked me long in the face, his mustache and eyes calling dark attention to themselves. “It’s true.”

I kissed him, opening my mouth, and he slid back on top of me. “Man, I’m in trouble, Les. I believe everything you say.” He began to move and my mouth tasted sour and I wanted one of those tall Budweisers in the ice chest downstairs. I raised my legs up and held his back and I wanted him to let go inside me, deep inside, where everything I say has another side to it, like telling him to wear a condom when I know I don’t want him to do anything like that at all. Not at all.

QUITE EARLY SUNDAY MORNING I CARRY TO MY SON’S ROOM A TRAY OF sugar and hot tea and I tell to him everything we face as a family. Esmail sits up in his bed with no shirt upon him, his eyes still heavy with sleep, his black hair uncombed. He drinks his tea and listens quite intently as I explain the young woman with whom he spoke on the grass Saturday afternoon. He looks away from my eyes.

“She said this is her house, Bawbaw-jahn. And it was taken away from her for no reason.”

“No, as I have just said, there was a reason. She did not pay her taxes, Esmail. This is what happens when we are not responsible. Fardmeekonee? Do you understand?”

“Yes, Bawbaw.”

I do not like lying to my son, but I am certain if he knows the woman’s home was taken from her due only to bureaucratic mistake, he will not be able to keep all of this from Nadereh.

“We own the home now, Esmail. We purchased it legally, and that woman has no right to harass us. This is why I do not want you telling to your mother any of these things. You know how easily she can become sick with her worries.”

“Moham-neest, Bawbaw-jahn. No problem.”

I nod my head and drink from my tea, weighing whether or not I should tell to him more, that I had planned for us to stay here until cooler weather began but now I feel compelled to sell and leave while it is still clear no one has legal recourse against us. And I enjoy sitting here with Esmail, discussing serious matters. It has been the nature of my life’s work to keep secrets, and to bear heavy responsibility for others. But oftentimes, I feel very tired and quite alone. And of course it is an important moment for Esmail, to have his father confide in him for the first time. My son sits straight in his bed, his brown shoulders pulled back while he holds his teacup and saucer and nods his head along with me.

“You know I must raise money for your university education.”

“I can get another paper route.”

“Man meedoonam, I know. And you must begin saving your money.”

“Yes, Bawbaw.”

“Tomorrow, people are coming to view this house for buying. If we are fortunate, we can make a large amount of money. Wish me bright eyes, son.”

“Will we have to move?”

“Yes, but we will have enough pool to live well, perhaps to buy more property or start a business.”

My son stares across the room at the blank screen of his computer, but I know he is not seeing this. I begin to regret telling him my affairs.

“Bawbaw-jahn?”

“Yes.”

“We were rich in Iran, weren’t we? Weren’t we pooldar?” He regards me as if he has not seen me in a long while, his mouth open slightly. I stand to leave.

“Yes and no, son. Yes and no.”

IT IS MY belief people feel more free to spend their money in good weather, so I am disappointed today, Monday, with its gray sky and its fog bank along the beach. From the widow’s walk I can see no ocean, only a whiteness down beneath the rooftops of Corona. Also, my first appointment telephoned to cancel, stating they had seen a property over the weekend they could not turn down. I tried to talk the gentleman into at least seeing my bungalow, but he was not to be moved.

At noon Soraya arrives to take Nadi to lunch. My daughter is dressed tastefully in a skirt and blouse and jewelry, her black hair held back with a silver ornament. I am on the roof as she steps out of the car and waves and blows to me a kiss. This morning she told Nadi on the telephone she is enjoying decorating their new condominium in Mountain View, over one hour’s drive south of us. And she is a good daughter to have driven so far to lunch with her mother at a fine restaurant in San Francisco. I did not tell Nadi of my appointments today, and I am grateful she will be gone from the house.

After they leave I descend the stairs to ask Esmail to do the same, to leave, but he has already disappeared, his skateboard gone as well. I suspect he is making friends with the local young people along the beach here. Now the bungalow is empty and silent and for a brief moment I feel quite lost standing in its rooms without my family. I inspect it once more for order and cleanliness, but I need not worry. Nadi takes care of every room as if we are expecting special guests each day.

LES WOKE ME BEFORE DAWN MONDAY MORNING WITH A CUP OF THAT too-hot cowboy coffee from the woodstove. The Coleman lantern was turned low, not even hissing, and in the shadows I could see he was in his uniform, with his badge and gun, his hair combed and still wet from the river. He squatted on one knee at the corner of the mattress and said he’d heated me up a basin of water to clean up in, I could stay here or he could drop me off at the Eureka to get my things.

“Get my things?”

He glanced down at his hands. “If you want to.”

“I do, Les.” I nudged his back with my foot. “You’ve got a weird way of asking, though.”

“I’m shy, Kathy.” He smiled, then stopped. “Will you know how to get back here on your own?”

“Yep.” I dressed in front of him, then peed in the dark woods and brushed my teeth on the porch, using a cup of warm water to rinse my mouth.

On the drive back to San Bruno, Les told me about the two lawyers he knew in town who would get me back into my house in no time. The sky was beginning to lighten, though it was gray and the beaches seemed to be one long fog bank. I sat there in the passenger’s seat with my feet up on the dash feeling almost confident that everything would get worked out. At the motor lodge Les paid the bill and carried my suitcase to my car. We kissed goodbye and promised to meet back at the fish camp by seven o’clock tonight. He said to be careful driving that luxury car of mine up the pine trail, then he was gone.

I sat in my car a few minutes and smoked a cigarette, flicking my ashes out the window. I was starting to feel jittery, though I’d only had half a cup of Lester’s coffee, and my fingers were shaking a little as I smoked my second cigarette though I’d meant to light just one. In Group, we’d coax all our snakes and gargoyles into the room and smoke our lungs sore and our eyes bloodshot while we got “clear” on everything else. And I knew to any of my counselors back East my life wouldn’t look very manageable: I was drinking again, and smoking; I was sleeping with a man who’d just left his family, all while I was supposed to be getting back the house I’d somehow lost. I knew they would call the drinking a slip, the smoking a crutch, the lovemaking “sex as medication,” and the house fiasco a disaster my lack of recovery had invited upon itself, and on me. In RR, it would be time to turn to self-control and self-worth reminders, use my powers of reason to tell myself how lovable I was, how I didn’t need to do anything dangerous because I’d be endangering a good person, me. I knew what all the rationally recovered assholes would say, but it wasn’t me loving me I was interested in. It was Lester loving me, he and I living on Bisgrove Street, both working during the day only to spend time together at night, snuggling in front of the TV, or else going to bed early to make love. And that’s what it was beginning to feel like, love.