“She doesn’t hate you,” Milo said. There was a maturity in his voice I hadn’t noticed before. “She’s afraid of you.”

“Afraid of me? I’m just a kid. What could I do?”

“It’s not what you would do,” Milo said. “It’s who you are. You see, our parents brought me and Robin up to be good Americans, to believe in others. We learned their lessons, but when we started living lives where we knew all kinds of different people who had different ideas, they became afraid of what might happen. Robin lived with a black man and then I grew up and grew my hair long.”

“But my mom was a good person,” Feather argued against absent grandparents.

Milo heard her and managed not to cry.

At around 4:00 I suggested that Agosto Longo give Milo a ride back down to the Strip.

“I think we’ve had enough for the day, don’t you, Uncle Milo?” I said.

He and Feather hugged goodbye.

I called Agosto on Brighthope’s closed-circuit phone and sent Milo down on the funicular. He left the photo album for Feather and she hugged it tight, not letting go even in her sleep.

25

25

I was looking out from the veranda at the sliver of the ocean. There was a half moon just out of sight that made that little strip of the Pacific glitter. I had been graced with one of the most important moments in my daughter’s life. She was no longer alone and rudderless; she had a history.

When nighttime deepened I was still staring. The Brighthope phone rang and, reluctantly, I headed for it.

“Hello?”

“It’s the French girl,” Cosmo said.

Not a trio of killers at any rate.

“Send her up.”

I met Asiette at the dais where the funicular docked. She ran into my arms and kissed me like we had been apart for years. I didn’t complain.

“I am so sorry, Easy,” she said when the kisses subsided. She wore a pale and thin silk violet dress that fluttered slightly.

“For what?” I asked, putting my arm around her and guiding her back toward Roundhouse.

“I broke up with Stefano at dinner tonight,” she said as if that were an answer.

“Why?”

I’d like to say that it meant nothing to me that a beautiful Frenchwoman dropped her rich Italian boyfriend and then ran to my bed. I’d like to say it didn’t matter but in fact I felt it in what prim romance writers called the nether regions.

“He was angry that we are lovers,” Asiette explained.

“I thought everything was open season until somebody came up with a ring?”

“Not open for tall handsome black men who aren’t impressed by Stefano’s wealth and fancy clothes.”

I stopped on the blue-brick road and kissed her. I had to.