Food was better than I remembered, not just because I was ravenous, making up for lost time, but because Lonnie purchased only the best of everything—all the produce ripe, sweet, juicy, fresh, mostly from local farms. The eggs gave up bright orange yolks, the likes of which I’d never seen. They tasted almost like a different food they were so rich. Once, craving the crackers I’d tried not to finish off that afternoon, I went to Dean & DeLuca after my shift and found the tiny box cost ten dollars, which came out to more than fifty cents a cracker.

One day, watching me struggle, Lonnie showed me how to cut open a mango, avoiding the hard middle, then running the blade along the flesh of the two sides in a crisscross pattern. I imagined the knife sinking into her hand as she cupped a half in her palm, pictured her blood like juice. When she bent the slice back so all the little cubes of fruit popped out, ready to be cut free, I exhaled a delighted laugh. “Not quite done,” she said, picking up the middle, and carefully slicing the peel off all the way around. When the ribbon fell to the cutting board she brought the pit to her mouth and sucked at it, scraping what was left of the meat away with her teeth. She handed it, half-eaten, to me, and I put the slippery thing to my own mouth, juice running down my hand.

4

I’VE ALWAYS WATCHED A LOT OF HORROR MOVIES. AS A KID I’D liked them simply because they were forbidden. Though they gave me nightmares, I watched anyway, just to feel like I was getting away with something. I grew to appreciate them for other reasons, though. I like the way a good one feels like something lifted from your own nightmares. I like the way the body is treated with reverence by the camera during its destruction.

Though they rely on the element of surprise, most horror movies actually work in a very predictable way. It’s not difficult to find a sense of comfort and reliability within the darkness; you only have to know the formula. The main character is given one real clue before they know they should be looking for it, followed by a series of red herrings. In this way, the plot is essentially a story of recovery. They are not really discovering things, as much as it may seem that way, but rather trying to work out what they already know, trying to remember whatever it was they were shown back when they thought things were random and unrelated.