I exited the freeway, drove slowly past dark service stations and awakening bakeries. Just inside the little town was a boulevard lined with supermarkets, their parking-lot lights shining down on acres of deserted asphalt, crisscrossed with territorial parking-space lines. I parked in an unobtrusive corner.

The early morning traffic noise grew even as I sat there for a few moments. Soon deliveries would be made to the markets, then the shoppers would come, and the parking lot would be abuzz with activity. I smiled. Some fat shopper would be leaving her children, clean, healthy, succulent little babies untended in the car, parked innocently next to mine. I would be asleep. The thought was distinctly pleasurable. Comforting.

I opened the roomy trunk of Sarah’s car and pulled out papers, toys, and Samuel’s boy-sized tennis shoes. A large car has many conveniences. I spread out the blanket I had taken from the motel, covering up the little accumulations of debris, then unstrung a shoestring from one of Samuel’s little shoes, and climbed in. I tied one end of the shoestring through two holes in the trunk lid and knotted the other end around the jack handle, then lowered it on its weight, not heavy enough to latch, just enough to look latched.

I stretched out, corner to corner, my head and one shoulder on the short rise to the back. This was heavenly. Roomier than the closet, more intimate than the motel room. It was close, warm, secure. It smelled like rubber, highway, road grit, and axle grease. I relaxed my muscles, settled in, and began to make music. I played the music to surround the car, to keep thieving hands from stealing it, curious hands from touching it, helpful hands from latching the trunk. I played the music until the car fairly hummed with the vibrations, and then the darkness receded and my consciousness went with it.

When I awakened, I awakened suddenly. My eyes opened with a snap and my senses were fully alert, primed, ready. I listened to the activity around me. Shopping carts rattled on their bad wheels, car doors slammed, children cried, a bottle broke.

I felt for my cane, held it on my chest, fingered the cold brass lizard, fingered each of its carved scales, its long graceful sweep of tail, its smooth throat, its little brass eyes. I ran my fingers over the smooth, highly polished shaft of wood, and I heard it sing, as the rim of a wine glass will when stroked with a wet finger. I heard chords in the grain of the wood. So. The things around me had their own music. I had a lot to learn. It would be a long time indeed before I could realize what I had gained in the blending of my personality with Hers.