The breeze coming in off the far ocean was slight and tepid, but it was a welcome break from the prickly-hot Santa Ana winds that blew in from the desert. For that, Keegan was grateful.

Nora finished sniffing about in the stunted rose bushes and trotted towards the light of the open kitchen door. She hopped up the back steps and disappeared into the cottage. She’d no doubt jog, yet again, from room to room, looking for an old woman. How long would a dog remember the dead?

Alone, Keegan took another sip of whiskey and tried to ignore the gloom that seemed to have taken root in him. He wondered if his mother ever came out into her garden this late on a hot, sleepless night with her terrier at her heels. What did she think of when she looked down on the vast city she had watched, through a lifetime, spread out to every horizon?

Widowed, by a suicide, in her twenties, she’d raised her son in her own parents’ house. Her father was a dour and aloof old man, always sunburned, exuding the scents of soil and orange blossom. He had little time for anything but citrus science and acreage. When he died, they’d moved to the house in Melrose, and Keegan had lived with his mother and grandmother, relying on avuncular charity. His uncles had even paid his way through college at USC—one last act of munificence before they were done with him.

But his mother must have had chances to start over again, Keegan reasoned. She could have made her own life, if that idea had appealed to her. His boyhood photos showed her as a smiling and pretty woman—not someone who would catch a director’s eye at Schwab’s perhaps, but attractive. In his earliest memories, she was all winsome smiles and playfulness, if a little timid. Why hadn’t she remarried, even with a child in tow?

But no, she’d spent her youth doting on her son—and for what? He’d never had his grandfather’s visionary drive. He even lacked whatever sad, headlong passions had led his own father to suicide. What promise had she seen in him? He’d led an insular life at best: a failed career, a failed marriage—an uninterrupted cycle of half-hearted striving undone by self-destruction.

Yes, the old woman had deserved better—a more fruitful life, a more attentive son. Since she’d given up driving, she’d been pretty much stranded on this hilltop. Keegan had visited her faithfully a couple of afternoons a week, but it was hard to put aside the daily hustle of survival to come up here and listen to an old woman’s woes. The scope of her complaints ranged from air quality to arthritis, nothing could be fixed, and Keegan’s biggest challenge was to refrain from checking his watch too often.