The voices come again, siiiiiiick. A troupe of teenage boys rounds the corner. They are obviously tourists in their folded baseball hats, wrap-around sunglasses, flip-flops; they are holding up their phones, showing each other screens on which I think I see the faint shape of women’s bodies, arranged in desirous postures. I breathe. Stupid of me, to have jumped to Jake, stupid to have forgotten he’s aged, too, gone invisible in his own way. Even when we first met, when I was young like these bros, Jake was almost thirty; I never knew him young like them, though he always seemed like it. For an instant, I imagine his current home life, the life of a privileged forty-something white guy: a messy dinner table, free-range red meat and kale salads, organic wine and a wife in a paisley maxi dress calling out the backdoor for her kids to come in. But even my fantasy of the unfiltered Jake feels glossed over and idealized, absent any evidence of his past, the parties and photo stunts, the moments of violence and betrayal I know he’s responsible for. Maybe that’s why he’s often off hunting, holing up alone in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps he’s out there meditating on what he did wrong, what he wishes he could take back. It’s a sweet fantasy, flavored by smug comeuppance, and I get lost for a moment, imagining Jake’s contrition. But the pinging phone in my own hand shakes me back to the real world, the real, probable reality in which Jake is still thoughtless, deserving of a punishment I haven’t yet given, and time has still passed and Gary in the blue Infiniti has arrived. He’s waiting.

I get up, close the screen, and hurry toward the door. “Have fun, hon,” the front desk clerk calls in my wake. Outside, the morning smog has already faded. I walk out into Los Angeles. Bright sun. Jasmine on the air. Ash, and fire.

22.

I returned from the Blaze party in the early morning, changed, and went straight to the hospital. A yellow light warmed the room’s appliances, the pink curtain, metal IV stand and beige monitors. My mother’s face, that too was cast in the glow. She was awake. And I could see she was alive in a way she hadn’t been the day I left. Had she noticed I was gone?

“Hi,” she said, and then, “Honey?”

“Mommy,” I said and thought I could tell she’d felt lost when she woke without me.

She said, “What are you wearing?” I looked down at the tracksuit, Blaze Cannabis embroidered over my heart.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up,” I said.

“Weren’t you?”