My mother’s underwater. She’s drowning. She’s screaming because she’s drowning. I must be underwater too because I can hear her. But it’s dark. I turn around and around and the water is the noise and I can’t breathe.

And then, for just a second, it isn’t water or screaming. It’s the phone. I scramble onto my feet and lunge for the receiver. It’s hard to speak at first but I force two “hellos” down into the mouthpiece. I don’t understand the noise that comes back. And then I realize it’s the dial tone. It’s not my mother—it’s not even the phone. The oven timer. Dinner’s ready. I take the food-formerly-known-as-Calvin out of the oven and I burn my thumb on the pan. The pain is that strange, nearly numb pain, an un-hurt. I mean, the hurt makes me feel a little better, more awake, less worried. I start to feel a sense of where I am, what time it is. The clock on the microwave says 7:15. The last boat has come and gone. I cover the chicken with foil to let the meat rest for twenty minutes. How am I going to eat all this food before it goes bad?

What a shame.

Twenty minutes to kill.

I should feel lucky. Mrs. Tyburn gave me a job that almost pays the bills and other than that I don’t have anywhere I have to be. I can choose the way I spend my days off. I can be alone whenever I want. I have a place to sleep. I have food. I have Rose. But someday soon I’ll have to go.

My leg throbs. I’m going to have to throw these jeans out. But the bleeding stopped while I was passed out on the kitchen floor. Things could be worse.

The last boat to Appledore has come and gone and no one came for me. I could turn on the TV and pretend I’m not alone, curl up and try to keep my mind blank until I manage to sleep. But that’s hours away. And even though I feel like toxic waste, I want to go out. Rose never invites me; I don’t want to miss it. If I’m going to go to the tavern, I have to get my shit together. No one’s going to come along and rub my back and say, There, there, poor baby. Not today.