Before opening the car door, Lucia took a deep breath of the Louisiana night air. She was not unaware of its heaviness, its moistness, the smells of Lake Pontchartrain—salt, seaweed, water creatures, all mixed with the sounds produced by the wind slapping water against the seawall, soughing in the tops of tall pines against a black sky.

She pressed hard on the starter in the old Triumph. It ground, coughed, and was silent. "Oh, my God," she said and hit the steering wheel with her fist. If it wouldn't start, she would just have to have Everett paged at the New Orleans airport. Tell him to get on a Greyhound bus for Mississippi. He should have done that in the first place or flown into Jackson. "Start!" she growled and pressed again, and it did. She floored the accelerator, in neutral, and the engine roared underfoot, confident and, as always, a little arrogant for so small a tiger. The beam of the headlights crawled across the wall and the screened porch as she slowly backed out of the carport and turned toward the street.

"I'm out of my mind," she said aloud. "I'm just out of my ever-loving mind." She had begun talking to herself after Christopher died two years ago. They had had such a good time talking that when he was no longer there she just kept on talking. "I am my own best company," she sometimes said, picking figs or surveying herself at the full-length mirror, ready to go out. She slowed and looked at her watch under the corner streetlight. Ten o'clock.