The flush ran through me again. Where would I spend the day? Where could I sleep and not freeze? I needed shelter, darkness, a box—I needed to remem­ber that She was still lurking, just waiting for me to give in, just watching, patiently, oh so patiently.

I calmed myself, rubbing my thighs, and tried to remember, not so long ago, when I was younger, more adventurous, when I never had to worry about where I would sleep—I was One With Creation, and I belonged wherever I happened to be. What had hap­pened to those days?

I was not sure. But something had. Carefree life was for children—the child I had been at that time—that time before Earl Foster, before Lewis, before Boyd.

Three men sat on round green swivel stools at the Formica counter in the New Mexico State Cafe. One boy chain-­smoked cigarettes in a corner booth while his rat-­haired girlfriend slept with her head on his shoulder. A tiny woman sipped coffee and patted her lipstick with a handkerchief after each swallow, and I began to focus on her. Once I saw the flask she tipped into her coffee each time the tired waitress filled her cup.

She saw me watching and raised an eyebrow, offering me a nip. I smiled, amid my very personal pain, and declined. In a moment, she had joined me, uninvited, but I was too weary to protest. Her reddish-­brown hair was so neatly coiffed that I thought she’d tamed it with a hair net. Bright spots of rouge dotted her powdered cheeks, and her eyebrows had been drawn on in a fine line. Brown eyes twinkled out of a wrinkled face with precise lips. She was no larger than I—an elf, I thought—and I smiled at her.

She patted my hand with her old spotted one. “Traveling alone?” she asked. I nodded. “Me, too. This is my Christmas trip, a little Christmas present I give myself every year. I just love to travel. At night, that is. The daytime is too scary for me, all those trucks and buses and . . . things.” She tipped again into her coffee, then screwed the thimble top on tight and slipped the silver flask into her purse. “Do you like . . . the night?” And her bright little eyes turned predatory as she hooked them into me over the rim of her coffee cup.

I nodded.

“Thought so. Ever wish you were different?” The thrumming in my legs lessened. I couldn’t believe this woman. She spoke to my soul.

“Yes. I do.”

“Forget it.” She waved her hand across the table. “We are the way we are. You’re young enough to accept it and enjoy your life in the night. I wasted mine trying to change.” Her hands made little piano-­playing motions on either side of her coffee as she looked into it, brow furrowed, thinking. “So what do you want?”