The sister snorted, then poured a mug of sugar into a mug of water: Valencia liked to experiment with cooking. Valencia was adamant, yet Frances could not be hard-hearted. She did not forget Martin French, and sometimes mentioned him—albeit dryly. Her face was now normal, but other things got worse. She lost the ability to sleep well, and took to sitting on the porch at night. Angry skin eruptions began. So did an unpleasant awareness of her womanly side: that she often was making the small, repetitive movements of tidying and storing that were low to the ground, where the edges of things seemed to inveigle her to disappear.

It was as if the disturbance that had caused her face to sag now slid inside her, so that, while her outward appearance improved, another kind of imbalance—a potent one—took its place.

She tried to find a place for herself, and spent a few months associating with a group of young people in town who called themselves “Ears,” for they spent their day hours at Ming’s tavern, listening to music on a powerful jukebox. Frances pretended to be comfortable with Ears, laughing at their jokes and wearing full, brightly patterned skirts when with them, but deep down, she felt out of sorts. She knew the wild, sessile sensation within her—wind tugging at a rooted tree in her chest—would never go away, and that even as she wished more from life, the wish seemed less negotiable each day.

She asked Palmer, her physician, about these occurrences, and he contextualized the phenomena helpfully by saying, “Frances, sometimes things just happen—and we don’t understand why!”

* * *

Ray and his brother Kenny were due at the house soon, part of the weekly routine for them all. The coffee Frances had made that morning was now a thick slurry of grounds and sugar. From her stool by the stove, she stared down into the pan. How funny it would be if she served this syrupy substance to Ray and his brother! She laughed hard, eyes squeezed shut.

After heating the pot on the tiny, low stove that required her to bend over when cooking, she drank the coffee down. She needed energy. When Ray and Kenny arrived, she would set food out for everyone. Kenny was a fireman.

The telephone rang in long, magnificent peals, and she sprinted to stop the sound, knowing who the caller would be; Frances was unaccustomed to receiving phone calls from anyone besides her mother. “Hello, dear!” She heard a clattering noise behind Mrs. Johnson’s voice. Her mother liked to collect wooden oars, and if she bumped into her living-room wall, where the oars hung, they ­usually fell.

“Mother, I’m busy.”

“I wanted to remind you. Please buy a coat, Frances. That wind today was a killer. Winter’s coming. I bought a coat for myself today—fireproof!”

“I bought a coat, Mother,” she answered. “Leather.”